Haunting
by Noticablenotpretty
Summary: Natasha has experienced a lot in her life and the horrors of the Red Room beginning to catch up to her. What happens when she's caught dealing with it in the only ways she knows how? Trigger Warning: self-harm (cutting, burning), Eating Disorder (Anorexia/EDNOS/OSFED), rape and other forms of sexual assault, torture, abuse, death (RED ROOM)
1. Chapter 1

Natasha and Clint had taken to training together in Avengers Tower early in the morning, far before any of their other teammates were awake. It was an easy sort of routine; they would warm up together and spar in hand-to-hand combat for an hour before moving onto weight training and target practice, Natasha with a Glock and Clint with his favorite bow. Clint insisted that Natasha start seeing this as real training, instead of her insisting that the only "training" she had done was the intense, brutal regiment she followed in the Red Room. Truthfully, she had only shared bits and pieces with Clint about her time there when it was unavoidable. He had learned that she had killed innocents as "training" after a particularly intense mission in which they had incurred a civilian casualty and she had a full panic attack in the helicarrier on the way back to the compound. He learned that they chained her to the bed to keep the girls from escaping when she was restrained to a medical bay bed when she refused to stop thrashing away from doctors. A few bits and pieces had been inferred along the way and he attempted at every turn to convince her that it was not her fault and that the Red Room "training" was cruel and not true training.

Natasha was notably missing from this morning's session and Clint was concerned. Usually, he could find her stretching or running when he came in to start their morning routine, but she was in neither area. He checked the range to find her finishing her session, covered in sweat and breathing all too quickly.

"Tash," he said slowly. She whipped her body around quickly to face him, gun still raised and eyes darting between Clint and the door. He raised his hands above his head in surrender. "Tash, you're in Avengers Tower. It's me, Clint."

"Avengers Tower," she muttered under her breath, a thick Russian accent leaking into her voice.

"Yes. Avengers Tower. And I'm Clint, your partner. Can you lower the gun, Tash?"

She slowly lowered the gun and sighed deeply, closing her eyes and allowing her shoulders to fall with her breath. She flinched when fingers touched hers as Clint wrapped his hand around her gun and took it slowly across the room, out of reach.

"Tash, what happened?"

She slowly opened her eyes and met his, her eyes silently pleading him not to ask more.

"Nothing," she walked toward the door out of the range as Clint grabbed her wrist to stop her from leaving. She wrenched her wrist and flipped him on his back before she could even think to stop. The resounding bang of his back on the floor seemed to snap her out of her trance. "Clint… I'm so sorry."

He searched her eyes as he nursed his back and stood quickly. Trying to lighten the mood, he cracked a joke, "Glad I took the gun when I did."

"I could have killed you and you make a joke," she said breathily, taking the opportunity to sprint out of the training area and up the stairs to her floor.

"JARVIS," she spoke aloud to the AI. "Secure my floor. No one enters until I leave." She didn't listen for a reply or Clint's banging on the stairway door, but continued her quick strides to the bathroom. Even though the floor was secure, she still felt like she had to close and lock the door, double checking that no one could interrupt her before rummaging in the medicine cabinet for the Midol bottle hidden among other painkillers and post-mission supplies. Even if the boys had been smart enough to pick up on her little habit, they would never dare touch such a feminine product as period medicine. She twisted the lid off quickly and reaching for the metal inside, instantly calming her racing heartbeat.

She didn't do this often, only when she couldn't shake the memories of what happened in the Red Room. Not the small things she had shared with Clint or the occasional things Tony figure out, but the deepest, most horrifying things that ebbed at the edge of her mind until she could no longer ignore the memory. She hadn't slept in three days, if you could call the twenty minutes she had gotten in the days preceding those three "sleep," because the nightmares would not stop. Finally, last night she decided it was time to resume her training without Clint, her real training. So, after all the other Avengers had wandered off to bed, she snuck down to the training floor and put her body through three hours of ballet, two hours of running at top speed, and finally an hour of target practice. Now, she would complete the training by giving herself a Red Room punishment for every miss, every slip of her ankle, and every break she had to take on the treadmill. Thirty-seven in all, gracefully etched into her thighs where the boys would never see. Not nearly perfect enough for the Black Widow, she was better than this, she had to be. Tonight, she would be better.

The habit was part punishment, part practicality of a distraction that worked to push her memories deeper into the depths of her unconscious. It was messy, addictive, and becoming more frequent as the flashbacks and triggers that sent her spiraling into a panic became unmanageable, but it worked, even after several years. She had mastered hiding her habit and even let her teammates see some of her tamer panics, like in the infirmary or helicarrier, to convince them that they were "helping." She hated lying to them, especially Clint, but they would never understand the Red Room and why she had to do this. So, thirty-seven cuts cleaned and wrapped later, she emerged from her floor of the tower ready to face a confused partner and spin a convincing lie.


	2. Chapter 2

She wandered into the communal kitchen and made a bee-line for the Keurig, thanking the Gods that Tony's dollars and caffeine habit had afforded the team a freakishly quick machine.

"So, I hear you're our latest psych case," Tony jeered at her, extending a full mug in her direction. "I thought that was Mr. Green and Angry's role. What will her do now?"

"Coming from the raging alcoholic and sex addict?" She accepted the cup, rolling her eyes at his remarks.

"If you're having trouble with panic attacks, I'm sure the SHIELD therapists would be happy to" Bruce was cut off by a silent glare from Natasha and he raised his hands in defeat.

"If there's something we need to do to avenge you, Lady Natasha, you must tell us." Thor said between bites of what must have been his fifth Poptart of the morning. Steve nodded his head, agreeing with Thor's sentiment, but not adding his own commentary to the discussion.

"Anyway," Tony started. "You look like shit and Legolas was all concerned about you, so when are you guys going to admit you've been boning nonstop?"

"Tony," Clint said in a warning tone. Tony quickly took his coffee to the elevator in headed to the lab to work on yet another iteration of his Iron Man suit. Clint followed Tony with his eyes, daring him to make another comment before turning his attention to Natasha. "You really should eat something, Tash. Then, you can come up to the roof with me to talk about this morning."

Natasha unceremoniously drained the rest of her mug and set it in the sink, "I'm ready whenever you are, Hawk."

They walked slowly, in an uncomfortable silence to the roof, where they would have some privacy from the other men in the group. When they reached the roof, Clint perched himself on the side of the building, legs dangling over the edge and bow laid next to him. Natasha sat on the other side, cross-legged and waiting expectantly.

"Tash, what happened?"

"I think I kicked your ass, Barton." She laughed, playing it off as just another sparring match where she had bested him.

"Natasha," his tone was warning, but his eyes were smiling. He felt like he had his partner back, as she seemed so much more like the woman he knew than the one he had seen that morning. He was happy that she seemed to be doing okay, but wasn't entirely convinced. "Were you back in the Red Room?"

"Barton, we really don't need to talk about this."

"Yes, we do Nat. You never talk to anyone about this. You've told me some of it, sure, but never all of it and it's not good for you to keep that shit to yourself. I know what happened was… bad. But I can help if you just let me!"

"To be honest, Clint, it's none of your damn business."

"You almost killed me!" His voice and anger were rising now and he stood up, stepping off the edge and back onto the flat plane of the roof.

"Almost! I never would have hurt you."

"You've killed innocents before!" He regretted it the instant he said it, but that didn't stop the hurt that crossed her eyes immediately.

"That was a low blow, Barton." She stormed back inside as he called her name after her for the second time that day. Then, he returned to the roof, pacing back and forth about what to do next. Seconds later, Tony appeared on the roof, complaining about how JARVIS had woken him up from his nap and how this better be good. By this point, Clint had angry tears rolling down his cheeks which stopped Tony in his tracks because he had never seen Clint cry before.

"Woah," he said calmly. "What is going on? The little assassin locked herself on her floor and now you're crying on the roof, is this a real-life version of a soap opera?"

"I need you to tell me everything you've figured out about Tasha's time in the Red Room. Files, JARVIS's intel, anything you have." Tony faltered in his step, considering his options. This would be a complete and total breach of Natasha's privacy, but on the other hand, Tony didn't have much more than Clint probably already knew.

"Come down to my lab, we can talk there."

They walked quickly to the elevator and tried to stop on Natasha's floor, finding it still locked. They asked JARVIS if she was okay and he responded that he was forbidden from giving any details, but that she was alive and in no immediate, life-threatening danger. Tony silently thanked himself for coding JARVIS with an unreachable backup feature that allowed him to know of life-threatening emergencies despite any restrictions placed by any member of the team. When Tony and Clint arrived in the lab, they sat at a desk in front of a large screen, where Tony would display the information he had found, which he kept in a coded folder, "WRBN." It did not escape Clint that there was most likely a file for his information, but that was a point of discussion for another day.

The first file in Natasha's folder was titled "SHIELD" and contained no important information that Clint did not already know - her mission reports, how she came to be a SHIELD agent, certification dates, her agent number and clearances, and medical conditions which SHIELD had treated her for in the past, which he skipped as it felt like an invasion of privacy and would likely not reveal much as she despised the med bay and had only been there three times, all of which Clint was present for, except for her initial "lady" exam. The next file was of her pre-Red Room history; loving parents, Alisa and Leonid Romanov, died in a house fire leaving a three year old, Natalia, who was presumed dead alongside her parents by Russian authorities. A photo of Natalia before the fire was in the file, as well as immunization and basic medical records, a pre-school enrollment record for the year of the fire, and an acceptance letter to an early ballet school named the Red Swan Program.

"That's how she was scouted." Tony informed Clint. "Her parents wanted to enroll her in ballet, just like any other girl her age and so she had been taken to a ballet 'exam' for placement into a class. Her parents were told she showed talent and she was accepted to a scam program. Her parents mailed in an application," he pulls up a photocopy of the application. "They listed their home address, when the parents are typically home, and a few other details hey should have left blank that made it easy for the Red Room to get her."

Anger was growing on Clint's face. Of course, her parents could not have known this was a scam, especially so many years ago when people were much more trusting, but he could not helping placing some of the blame on them.

The last file was labelled Red Room and was the largest by far. Medical records, photos, mission reports, and more littered the contents, all scanned crudely with some detailed intentionally cut off or black out by ink stains.

Name: Natalia Romanov

Age at Extraction: 3

Immunizations: All

Weight: 13 kg (28.7 lbs)

Height: 90 cm (2 ft 11 inches)

Notes: Natalia will be raised by Mother Aliana until age 5, when she will begin her training with the new class of eleven recruits her age. Shows promise in ballet and will take classes prior to beginning her true training regime.

First Mission Age: 6

Mission: Cherry Blossom

Status: Success

Fatalities: 2 (Intended: 1)

Method: Gunshot

There were hundreds of similar reports, some with information manually redacted. The photographs included headshots of Natasha at each year she spent in the Red Room, several during ballet recitals, and one disturbing photo taken with her facing away from the camera, sitting on a bed in a state of undress, one arm chained to the top and a sheet wrapped around her body. Clint had not realized that the girls were not given clothing to sleep in, though he knew of being handcuffed to the beds.

"She was used as a lethal weapon. A very lethal weapon, from as young as she can probably remember. I think she's entitled to a little panic attack every now and then." Tony said, closing the file and facing his teammate.

"This was different," he said simply before leaving the room. In his head, he silently added "this was dangerous" to the end of his sentence because no one could deal with this by themselves.


	3. Chapter 3

They didn't talk for three days and that was slowly killing Clint. Natasha dealt with it the same way she did everything else, by adding a smooth line to her leg for every mistake – one for every hour they didn't talk. It wasn't like she was addicted, it just helped to keep her mind off things, especially since she had to avoid the training floor for fear of running into him. It took three days, and even then, they only spoke because Fury had called the pair in for a mission. Natasha acted the same as she always did in front of Fury, even making a few jokes at Clint's expense, but when they reached the helicarrier and took off en route to Brazil, she turned off her comms and ignored his pleas for her to talk to him, only turning them back on once they landed.

"Target locked. Your left." She said briefly, swerving to avoid a car as she drove a stolen motorcycle down a rural road. His arrow soared past her as she passed the target and looped back to retrieve the unconscious woman. Fury had not given many details, but her blood had run cold when she locked eyes with the woman and realized who exactly SHIELD was targeting with this mission. She was reluctant to collect the woman's body and considered defying orders and killing her instead of bringing her back to SHIELD.

"Tash, let's go." Clint's voice always pulled her out of these deep thoughts. Today was no exception as she lugged the woman onto the bike and sped toward their transport shakily. Clint knew something was off, he could see it even from the roof of the decrepit building he was perched on. She was shaking and breathing rapidly before they even made it to the helicarrier and this was markedly different than the other times. Natasha was still present and aware enough to know they were on a SHIELD mission, but she was definitely panicking.

"Tash?" Clint asked gently.

"I need…" she said between breaths.

"You need what, Tash? Talk to me." Clint secured the woman with cuffs in a seat in the back of the helicarrier and set the course.

"Tower. I need to get to the Tower."

"We are heading there right after we deliver this bitch to Fury and give a mission report. I need you to calm down so we can do that." He tried to gently guide Natasha to sit in the copilot seat, but she would not budge.

"No… I can't… I need…."

"Tash, what do you need from the tower? I can have Stark bring it to headquarters and meet us there."

Natasha seemed to relax a bit at this, so he continued.

"Just tell me what you need and Stark can bring it to us. I just need you to tell me what's going on."

"Just…" She spoke slowly, catching her breath and attempt to self-soothe by pressing the rounds of her fingernails into her hands. "Woman troubles. I need Midol. I was just panicked that I would be stuck without it and I'm in pain. It hit when I hit a pothole with the bike. Sorry I freaked you out."

"Oh, uh, okay," Clint blushes furiously and Natasha knows that she has once again hid her habit, even in the midst of a bad panic attack. Now, if she can stay calm until the helicarrier lands, she can get her fix. Except something wasn't quite sitting well with Natasha. This wasn't punishment and she wasn't struggling too much with the memories of the Red Room, she just saw a former handler and couldn't control he emotions. This one hadn't done anything to her. Could she use her blade for this? Of course she could, she was in control of this and if she though it was a reason, then it was a reason. It wasn't like she needed it, she just needed control of her emotions again. A punishment for losing control of her emotions, she decided. For almost letting Clint figure it out.

"Hey," Clint breaks her out of her thoughts once again. "Stark needs to know where to find your… woman stuff."

"It's in my medicine cabinet in my bathroom," she laughs, but there is still a weight to her giggle that she cannot seem to shake.

It feels like days before the helicarrier lands, maybe even weeks. Clint lets you find Tony while he takes hold of the woman you extracted and he doesn't miss your shudder when he uses that word to describe the mission. You hop off the transport and nearly sprint to the front of SHIELD headquarters, finding an angry Tony waiting for you, holding your bottle in his left hand and yelling angrily into his phone. When he sees you, he lowers his voice and hangs up on whoever he's talking to and grabs your wrist, pulling you toward the car Happy is waiting in. Your expression turns to one of confusion.

"Tony, I have to give a mission report and I need to take some Midol, where are we" Natasha says hurriedly, stopped when he begins to unscrew the lid. She darts for the bottle, only for him to yank his hand backward.

"What's wrong? It's just a painkiller, it won't hurt me. Besides, I've got a killer stress headache."

She knows she's caught. Something in his eye tells her that much as the car speeds away from SHIELD and Happy lifts the divider, giving Tony the privacy he requested before picking you up. She knows she's caught and she still tries to fix it.

"I just only have a few left and I'm in a lot of pain and where are we going anyway because I still have to give my mission report and deal with that woman." The way she spits the word woman at him, like it was poison in her mouth, tells Tony more than he needs to know. He asks anyway.

"Who is she? And why do you have this?" He shakes the bottle and she hears metal clank against the plastic, making her legs itch and burn for a new cut.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Okay, so I'll have Happy drive us back to SHIELD and I'll go get Fury and Clint and you can explain this to all of us."

"No!"

"Start talking," he says harshly, pocketing the bottle.

"I…" Natasha lets out a loud huff. "She a Red Room handler. Or was. I don't know anymore."

"What did she do to you?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Natasha."

"She didn't do anything to me. Not directly, at least."

"What do you mean 'not directly?'"

"Tony," she whined.

"I'll still have Happy turn this car around."

"If she is responsible for anything, I don't know about it. The only women who gave us training were our ballet teachers."

"Kind of sexist."

"Wow, Stark, never thought I'd see the day."

"Now," he said firmly. "Your arms."

"Excuse me?"

"I need to see the damage. Show me your arms."

"I can't exactly do that," she replied, motioning to the skin-tight catsuit she wore as Black Widow. "If you forgot, I just finished a mission."

As if on cue, Tony's phone rang. He glared daggers at her to indicate that the conversation was not over. A few minutes later, they were headed back to SHIELD headquarters on orders form Fury, who was trying to pacify Clint's anxious rambling about Natasha and where she had disappeared to. Evidently, the woman from the Red Room had demanded to talk to Natalia upon waking and refused to speak to anyone else.


	4. Chapter 4

"How much did you tell them?" Natasha demands from Stark. Their car is parked outside of SHIELD headquarters, but she refuses to get out of the car until Tony tells her what she's walking into. If Clint knows, she can't face him, but Stark just keeps staring at her expectantly from the seat across from her. "Tony, I will stay in this car until you tell me who knows what and exactly what you told them, since you didn't, and still don't know, much at all."

"Oh, you and I will be having a long chat after this. I intend to get my answers and I know how to do that, so FOR NOW," he lifts an eyebrow at her, "Clint knows nothing. Fury thinks you have PTSD and I was giving you pills and helping you calm down from seeing that woman."

"I don't have PTSD, Stark," she protests, stepping out of the car.

"Would you have preferred I tell him the truth?" She falls silent at his words, quietly reassuring himself that Stark doesn't know the truth, either. She needs to come up with a convincing lie to spin to Stark after this whole mission is completed, whatever this woman wants from her.

Tony and Natasha arrive in the interrogation observation room a few moments later and Clint instantly walks over to her, looking her over for any signs of distress. She remains as collected as possible and stony-faced as she reminds him per their discussion a few days ago that they are partners, nothing more. He retreats to a cold stance and tells her what they know about the woman. She claims her name is Viktoriya and she is a former Red Room agent, but refuses to say more until she can talk to Natalia, her star Black Widow, indicating she must have been some sort of leader for the organization.

"5 minutes, Miss Romanoff. I sense any distress and we pull you," Fury tells her, his eyes oddly more caring than usual as she exits the observation room into the interrogation chamber.

"Natalia," the woman says, breathily. "It has been too long."

"You were not one of my handlers, I don't understand how you know me."

"Ah, Natalia, but I was." She replied. "I was all of your handlers. I was the, how you would say, handler of handlers. Every lesson, every mission, every punishment," the word slips off her tongue, laced in a sweetness that makes Natasha's skin crawl. "I decided every one of them. And you, beautiful little Natasha, were the best. The most kills of any Widow by age ten, the prima ballerina of our company by twelve… Yes, you were my favorite. The most promising, really. I can understand why SHIELD wanted you. And why they want me. But, I wonder, if they know everything about their Agent Romanoff, I believe you are now? Do they know all of your skills?"

"No," Natasha said, quietly. "And you'll stop if you want to stay alive."

"I do hope you've kept up your training, Natalia. It would be a shame if they couldn't use you to your full potential."

"They would never do that."

"Then they truly are wasting your talent, aren't they? I heard such raving reviews of your work from Ivan, the Winter Soldier, and the others… I almost wanted to check it out myself at times, but I had hoped that you would never discover my identity. Here we are though, maybe SHIELD will let me check out your skills when you prove useless." Natasha was becoming angry and doubtful at this. Surely, Fury would never let this woman… She pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

"So, why are you on their radar anyway? Surely you weren't stupid enough to get the organization caught."

"Natalia, you know me better than that. Is anything in your life ever not orchestrated? I believe my timing is perfect, you've been slacking on your training. By my guess, you haven't kept up your ballet regimen and have gained at least 10 pounds. Worse, you've lost your appeal. I do hope you've at least punished yourself accordingly. Which have you been using? Restricting food? Clearly not. Ha-"

Natasha slammed a hand over her mouth before she could finish talking. Viktoriya smiled up at Natasha's angry face as Fury swept in to pull her out.

"Struck a nerve?" The woman cackled as Natasha left the room to face Clint and Tony in the observation room. Fury stayed in the room with Viktoriya and asked basic SHIELD protocol questions, while she faced the two upset men in the next room.

"What the fuck is she talking about, Nat?" Clint asked as soon as she entered. He had obviously been pacing furiously the whole time while Tony stood in a wide stance, staring her down.

"Just some stupid punishments the Red Room used to give us. Hours of ballet. Restricting food. Stupid stuff if we messed up."

"What did they consider 'messing up' Nat?"

"Uh," she hesitated. "Failed missions."

"What else?" Tony interjected.

"That was mostly all." Clint relaxed, but Tony gave her a stronger look.

"Did they ever cut you?" Tony asked, pointedly.

"What are you talking about, Stark? That's insane!" Clint responded, a worried tone in his voice. "That's not a punishment, right Tash?"

"R-right," she said unsteadily, daring Tony to say more with her eyes.

"Tash…"

"Let's go back to the compound," Tony says, leading the way out of the room. "Natasha and I have a conversation to finish."

"I thought you were just giving her the stuff from the Tower," Clint says.

"I didn't give it to her."

"Well, it's her stuff and she said she needed it, so maybe you should stop being an asshole Stark. We're men, we don't get it."

"Yeah, Stark," Natasha said, voice dripping with malice. "It's my stuff."

"How about I give it to Clint and he decides whether you should really get to have it?" Tony threatens and she glares daggers at him the entire ride back to the Tower.

"Okay," Clint says. "Well, I'm gonna let you guys talk this out. Tash, I'd love to talk to you later. Please."

"Oh she will talk to you later." Tony agrees for her, yanking her wrist and pulling her up to his penthouse suite in the Tower.


	5. Chapter 5

"Take off your clothes," he demanded once they reached the suite.

"That's no way to get me into bed with you," she replies. He throws a long t-shirt at her and waits, expectantly. She walks, defeated, to his bathroom and slides out of her uniform and into the tee shirt. It is barely long enough, but it does cover all of her cuts and exposes her arms, where he thinks the cuts must be. She sighs and decides she'll have to face him eventually, so she walks out carefully, leaning her shoulders ever so slightly forward so the shirt will not ride up on her thighs. "Are you happy?"

He considers this for a moment, flipping her forearms to expose the underside to himself.

"What are these?" He points to the scar tissue on her wrists. She rotates her wrist all the way around, showing him that it circles her wrist.

"It's from being chained to my bed every night in the Red Room. Clint knows about that, I'm sure he can confirm for you if you want."

He was so sure that's what it was for, why else would she be hiding a blade? It's too small to be useful for combat, you would need to be far too close to the attacker and he knew from Pepper's razors that their blades were not this large.

"Roll up the sleeves to your shoulder."

"This is ridiculous, Stark," she sighed, annoyed as she rolled them up. There was a small scar on her left shoulder, but it was likely a bullet wound based on the circular shape, not a cut from a razor.

"Stomach."

"No." She says it a little too quickly and backs up suspiciously. It's as good as a confession to Tony, as he reaches out to grab the tee shirt. She has to think quickly, moving even further away from him.

"I don't like to be touched. Or seen. Especially in less than this." The lie comes easily, but she says it slowly, not trying to reveal that part of her past either, but it would be easier if Stark connected those dots than if he took away her only release. She really didn't mind people seeing her body or even touching it, if she trusted them and Stark happened to be on that very short list after keeping his suspicions secret from Clint today. Really, she trusted most of the men on the team, maybe not Bruce, but that was only because he knew too much about mental cases like herself.

"Nat, I'm not going to hurt you, I don't even see you like that. I just want to make sure you're okay."

"Nope."

"Okay, then I'll grab Pepper and you can show her. That just means an extra person will know, though. This doesn't have to go beyond me and you."

Natasha considered her options: telling Tony meant that Clint would know within minutes. Telling Pepper would delay that by a few minutes while she told Tony, unless she could convince Pepper to keep her secret with a false promise of stopping. Tony would be less easily fooled, though, and Pepper was a bad liar. There was only one solution in Natasha's mind once she realized she was backed into a corner: run.

"Listen Tony," she says, slowly inching her way backward toward the elevator. Every step she took resulted in a similar step on his behalf.

"You aren't getting out of this one that easily, Nat."

"Watch me," she said, turning quickly and sprinting toward the elevator. She almost made it inside. Almost. Her foot was crossing the threshold when Tony told his AI to shut off elevator access to and from this floor. He reached out and spun Natasha in her place to face him, accidentally shifting the large tee shirt she wore in the process and, in his periphery, he saw a flash of red near the hem before Natasha desperately pulled at the hem.

"Nat… Lift up the shirt."

"No," she said desperately, sliding to the floor and pulling his large shirt over her knees as she sat in a ball against the closed elevator door. "Just let me leave."

"You know I can't do that," Tony replied, sitting next to her. "How long, Nat?" He didn't look at her, he just stared straight ahead as he asked the dreaded question and waited patiently for her to regain her composure. Her head found its way to his shoulder as she cried silent tears. This was it, her life was over. Soon, he'd tell Clint and he would hate her forever – too weak for him, she could almost hear him say the words. Then, he'd tell Cap and she'd be kicked off the team. SHIELD would follow suit quickly thereafter and she would have nothing.

Well, at least she would have her blade, she thought bitterly. It was always there for her when no one else was, giving her the punishment and solace she needed with one quick swipe. Maybe she could be a mercenary, killer for hire. She had all the right skills, and that would at least keep her off the streets. She could imagine her fall from grace in great details: how the tabloids would print article after article on the great Black Widow's new life as a beggar on the corner of the tower where she once lived with the famed Avengers.

"Listen, just go ahead and tell Clint and Steve so we can get this over with and I'll go pack."

"What? Why would…" He trailed off and his eyes shone with both realization and sadness. "Nat, I didn't find out to get you kicked off the team or to tell lover boy. I want to help you."

"Yeah, right. Tony Stark, self-centered, uncaring Tony Stark wants to help a fucked up, shitty excuse for an assassin."

"I wouldn't say record-setting kills by age 10 makes you a shitty assassin."

She whipped her head off his shoulder and turned to stare at him, not even caring that his shirt was riding up her thigh. "How the fuck do you know that?"

"Uh," he scrambled to backtrack his words, but cut himself off when he saw what was her thighs. What remained was a mess of scar tissue and hundred of cuts, some deep gashes and a few hasty, jagged lines that barely scratched the skin. "Oh my god… Nat…"

"Stark! Focus! How the fuck do you know that? SHIELD doesn't have access to that. What the fuck did you do?" She was standing now and screaming at him, while he sat in shock. He had not been prepared for what he saw, and that was only a few inches of skin, hinting that there must be thousands in total. When he looked up to meet her gaze, he could see up the shirt and had to keep himself from gagging at the sight of all the damage she had inflicted; that would not help anyone.

"I got some of your Red Room files." She knew as much, that wasn't really what she needed to ask, but she was too flustered by the whole day to come up with a more coherent thought about this situation. "Nat, will you let me check them over for infection and treat them?"

"You're not a doctor, Stark," she spat back at him.

"If you want me to get Banner and explain the situation, I will. Something tells me you'd rather have me treat them."

"You don't have any questions? You just want to help?"

"I figured you wouldn't tell me much anyway."

"What do you already know?" She asked, not really wanting to know the answer. Whatever he knew was already too much and making his death look like an accident would be rather difficult, given the circumstances.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony sighed as she repeated her question. It was almost two o'clock in the morning at this point, but he had perched her on top of his bathroom counter after she agreed to let him clean her cuts. There were so many, and more than a few looked like they had needed stitches, but she had managed to not get a single one infected. She let out a slight hiss each time his cloth, coated in rubbing alcohol, touched one that hadn't quite scabbed over yet.

"I know that they sent you on missions to kill from the time you were six until you left. I know that they kept record of you at every year of your life, keeping a kill count and that you were the best at every challenge they gave you." Her head was hung in shame, hair falling on her thighs until he brushed it out of the way. "I know they made you kill innocents. I know what I heard today, that they starved you and forced you to do hours of ballet and training as punishment when things went South. I'm also assuming punishments weren't just for when things went South. I know they chained you to your bed to keep you from escaping. I'm assuming they are what started this. I know that they sterilized you."

"Who else?"

"Clint. Except about the sterilization, he didn't look into the medical information."

"What else do you know?"

"I don't know anything else," he said, placing emphasis on the know.

"What else do you assume?"

"If I tell you, will you tell me if I'm right?"

"Maybe."

"I'm pretty sure they beat you, too. You've got all the tells of someone who was abused."

"That was rare. It would have hurt our performances."

"Doesn't seem rare to me."

"They didn't beat us very often, Stark. I could count the number of times on one hand. The Red Room was much more about being mentally strong."

"And how did they achieve that?"

She dodged the question altogether, though she wasn't sure why. He already knew about the cuts, and she was willing to tell him about the other things instead of that earlier. Why was it different now? Was it because she already felt so exposed? Or would he take advantage of her too? He certainly had the physical capacity, but why would he clean her cuts and ask her all these questions if he just wanted a quick fuck? It didn't make sense.

"Are you done now?" She asked, motioning to the cloth that he had tossed aside.

"We have to talk about this."

"I don't see why. You said you aren't telling the team or Clint, so what else is there?"

"Well, you can't expect me to let you keep doing this, Nat."

"That's exactly what I expect, Stark. It's none of your business what I do with my body. I'm sorry you found out and I really am grateful that you helped me and aren't going to tell Clint or Steve, but really, I'm fine."

"This," he lifts the shirt to reveal the cuts again, "is not what fine looks like. You have to stop. It isn't helping you or the team or anyone, for that matter."

"Yes, it does, for your information. This is the only way I can help the team. I have to do this."

"Why? Just tell me why and maybe I'll at least reconsider having JARVIS alert the whole tower next time you hurt yourself."

"Because, Stark." She said, angrily, rooting through his bedroom drawers in search of a pair of sweatpants to wear down to her floor. "If I can't do this, the memories won't stop. If the memories don't stop, I'm no good to anyone and I'm just a panicking mess on the floor. A five year old girl who can't control her own emotions."

"There are other ways," he argued.

"Not for me," she said, huffing toward the elevator. "Go to bed, Stark. That's where I'm going, you have my fucking blade anyway."

Tony re-enabled the elevator, allowing her to descend to her floor. Then, he set to work creating an alert system for JARVIS if Natasha were to hurt herself again or if her vitals moved outside of the acceptable range.

Meanwhile, Natasha was setting up code that would not allow JARVIS to operate in her bathroom, nullifying anything Tony could do, so long as she stayed in her bathroom. Then, she set to work getting a new blade out of the packet she kept hidden in a fake book on her bookcase. She had half-expected Clint to be waiting in her room when she returned, but he must have gone to his room to sleep or the roof to brood. At least something went her way today, she thought as she peacefully began adding lines to her legs for her mistakes of the day. Letting Clint see her panic, getting flustered by the Red Room handler, Tony finding her blades, Tony seeing her cuts, Tony finding out… There was a lot of red when she began to drift to sleep on her bathroom floor.

When she woke up, her body and lungs were sore from the bathroom floor and from screaming her way through her latest nightmare. After attempting to wipe the dried blood off her leg, she realizes that it is caked on and she needs to take a shower, but her legs feel too weak to support her weight. They turn to jelly beneath her when she tries to stand, so she settles for crawling into the shower stall and reaching up to turn on the water to let it loosen the blood. The new cuts sting as the stream hits them, but she can't budge her body out of the way of the water, so she accepts this new pain as the beginning of her punishment for the day.

"JARVIS, what time is it?"

"It's 8:47 AM, Miss Romanoff."

"Shit," she whispered to herself, gathering all her energy to stand up and wash off the remaining blood. She emerged from her bathroom only to pull on training pants and a tee shirt and hurry down to the training floor. It was much later in the morning, so the rest of the team should be finishing breakfast or starting on the day's activities. She could only hope that Tony had kept his word about not telling the team as she began a six hour workout with two hours of intense ballet.


	7. Chapter 7

Tony had not slept very well that night, constantly turning the possibilities back and forth in his mind. He had not gotten an alert from his AI, so he assumed that either Clint had intercepted Natasha on her way downstairs or that she had just gone to bed as she said she would. The latter seemed unlikely under the circumstances, but technically he had no reason to not believe her, as she had been truthful when confronted with the issues, albeit hesitant. The way he saw it, he did not have very many options because some of Natasha's fear were likely legitimate – if SHIELD were told of her habit, she would be placed on some sort of probationary desk work and removed from the Avengers Initiative altogether. Clint would most likely not tell SHIELD, but he would not deal well with his partner's issues, given how frustrated he was with her unwillingness to share more about the horrors she faced in the Red Room. On the other hand, though, he could not let her keep doing this and JARVIS could only do so much to prevent her, which really was nothing as he could only them after the fact. She had mostly willingly allowed Tony to keep her blade, which made him suspicious that there were likely more hidden somewhere.

"JARVIS, where is Natasha?"

"Sir, Miss Romanoff is in the training room. She wishes not to be disturbed."

He probably had plenty of time to go through her room while she was on that level, most likely continuing her Red Room training to allay the fears instilled in her by the woman at headquarters yesterday. When he entered her room, he was shocked by how neat and orderly it looked. The bed had clearly not been touched in days, but everything else was spotless as well, save for the hamper in the closet which was nearly full of workout clothing and a few towels. He quickly headed for the bathroom and unscrewed and screwed the tops of every single medicine bottle in her cabinet, finding no further blades. The shower was clean and had no sharp objects in it, either. The drawers and cabinets were the same, except when he opened the small cabinet beneath the sink. There was a dried washcloth, likely from that morning, stained with blood wrapped around another double-edged razor blade.

"Oh, Nat." He sighed sadly, before retreating himself to the idea that he would need to talk to her yet again. Tony perched himself on the side of her bed around 2 PM and waited almost an hour before she came upstairs, drenched in sweat and drinking heavily from a large water bottle. When she spotted him holding the washcloth, she stopped dead in her tracks.

"What the fuck gives you the right to go through my room, Stark?"

"I think it's my name on the lease that gives me that one." He replies snarkily, put the blade in his pocket and disposing of the washcloth in her hamper. Tony let out a defeated sigh before continuing. "Why, Nat?"

"It's none of your business, Stark."

"It is, actually because you refuse to let me talk to anyone else about this, so it's my responsibility to end this. Now, where are the rest?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." There was a cold tone to her voice, but she couldn't stop her eyes from flicking to the bookshelf where her stash was hidden. She was already formulating a plan for how to go about buying more if he found them, but it would take at least the afternoon and she had made 23 mistakes that morning in her training. Stark had rushed to the bookshelf and was rooting through each book at the protest of Natasha when they were both halted by a knock at the door.

"Tash?" Clint's voice echoed through the room. "I know you're still pissed at me, but JARVIS said you were working out for a few hours and haven't had anything to eat in awhile… He wouldn't tell me how long, but I… uh, I brought you an apple. I was hoping we could talk for just a few minutes. I wanted to apologize."

"Come in," she said slowly, glaring daggers at Tony to stop looking through her bookshelf.

"Oh, I didn't realize I was interrupting," Clint says as he enters the room and sees the two of them eyeing each other. There was a hint of jealousy in his voice, though somewhere he knew that Tony was not interested in Natasha in the way he was. Still, they had spent most of the day together yesterday and Tash hadn't even talked to him after they left headquarters.

"That's okay, Katniss." Tony says, taking a hollow book off the shelf and shaking it lightly. "I was just leaving. Natasha, we can finish this later and I'll return your book then."

The color drains from Natasha's face as he walks out of her room with the last of her blades in his hands. She lies back on her bed and lets out a small cry of frustration as Clint moves to sit next to her on the Queen comforter.

"Tash, I'm really sorry about the other day. I was completely out of line, I've just been so worried about you since New York. It kills me that I can't remember what happened with us during it and I hate myself for whatever I did. I can't apologize enough because I have no idea what it was and you won't really tell me, but I understand that you're protecting me, I guess. I just really miss you. Steve doesn't kick my ass in training like you do." He places a hand gently on her thigh, which makes her nearly jump out of her skin and she can't tell if it's because of the cuts of the electricity that goes through her when he touches her.

"I forgive you," she says carefully, moving his hand back onto the bed. "And stop worrying about New York, it was nothing."

"Can we talk about it, though? Or any of the things that have happened since? I can help you, with whatever is going on. I know that seeing that woman was really why you were panicking, not the girl troubles or whatever."

"Clint, I really don't want to talk about it. Can we just go spar?"

"Didn't you just work out?"

"I need to clear my head from Stark's nonsense," she laughed, leading them out of her room and leaving the apple to rot on her bedside table.

After they finished sparring, she went to the supermarket around the corner. Tony had tried to stop her, but seemed to be reluctantly pacified when she agreed to bring Clint with her. Natasha sent him to get a few groceries items while she stuffed a packet of blades into her pants pocket, almost embarrassed that her habit was now leading her to steal when Stark had provided them with more than enough money. She needed them, she argued with herself, and Stark would probably check the receipts and the bags once they got back. Clint found it odd when the man did just that, but didn't bother protesting, opting to instead find his jealousy once again when he and Natasha shared a special look.

Tony smiled at her when he finished going through the bags and found nothing.

"I'm proud of you," he rubbed her head and winked at her.

This worked for Natasha for a few weeks. She would simply leave the Tower after her workouts, claiming that she would end them with a run outside around New York, then stopping into a store and using the blade hidden in her sports bra on her lower abdomen. Stark was happy with her progress when he routinely checked her thighs and found no new cuts. Natasha was proud of herself in a sick way because she had once again fooled them to keep up her habits. She grew closer with Clint than ever in these times, subtly flirting with the clueless man during their workouts. On one particular morning about three weeks later, she had gathered all her courage and kissed him goodbye after a session, leaving him shocked as she ran to the CVS around the block to cut.

"I thought… I thought you and Stark were an item," he yelled after her, but she had stopped listening to anything but her thoughts.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" She thought to herself, adding several deep, jagged lines to her stomach. When she managed to slow her breathing enough to realize what she had done, she began to panic even more. There was blood everywhere in the stall and all over her body. It was on her hands when she pulled her phone out of her pocket and had to swipe away Clint's texts to get to her phone and dial Tony Stark.

"Hello?" He answered sleepily. She hadn't realized it was only about 8 AM.

"Stark," she breathed into the phone.

"Nat, what's wrong?" He said, suddenly much more awake.

"I…" she took a breath to steady herself. "Can you come to the CVS around the corner? I fucked up."


	8. Chapter 8

"Jesus, Nat, what did you do?" He says, bursting into the bathroom and putting pressure on the deep marks down her abdomen.

"I'm sorry," she sobs into his chest. "I fucked up."

"This looks like a lot more than one fuck up, Nat. But we can deal with that later. Right now, we need to get you to Bruce because you need stitches."

"NO!" She yells, though it comes as more of a whisper while she is actively losing energy from the blood loss. "He can't… They can't…"

"It's him, or SHIELD." Tony picks her up, astonished at how light she is. She's even lighter than went he put her on his counter a few weeks ago, and she had not been able to afford any weight loss at that point. The cuts continued to bleed as he ran out of the store, ignoring the questioning eyes of the CVS employees and the few patrons mulling around the store. He only stopped once to take a phone out of a woman's hand when she attempted to snap a photo of Natasha's now unconscious body draped over his shoulder.

"BRUCE!" Tony yells as soon as he enters the Tower. "Meet me in the lab, please!" The rest of the team would likely ignore this call as he often called Bruce down for slight discoveries that may interest his other Science Bro. He hopped in the elevator and mentally urged it to move quicker, growing impatient and increasingly concerned every minute. When the elevator dinged, signaling his arrival in the lab, he ran to the nearest table and slid everything unceremoniously onto the floor to make room. Bruce was already waiting for him, wearing a shocked expression when he saw Natasha covered in blood.

"What happened?"

"No time, Bruce. She needs stitches and she passed out a few minutes ago, so I'm assuming she needs blood too." He was panicking now, as they did not necessarily have the facilities to treat her here. Bruce kept a well-stocked first aid kit with supplies for stitches and they had enough tools in the lab for a blood transfusion, but this was no blood bank.

"Stark," Bruce said, making quick, clean work of stitching up her injuries. "Have you seen all of these?"

"Yes," he said slowly. "It's not my place, but this has been happening for at least a month. I thought… Fuck, I thought she had stopped."

"Tony, you can't blame yourself for this. That won't help anyone. We need to focus on getting her better. Can you build something that can function as an IV? I can get the medical tubing and needle from my emergency kit upstairs, but I need a pole and… something to track her vitals. Quickly, I've finished the stitches, but she'll need a few days to heal completely without the blood transfusion she needs. Are you sure we can't take her to SHIELD?"

"Absolutely not."

Bruce gave a sad nod and took the elevator to his floor of the tower to get the medical supplies he needed. He was about to get back in it and head downstairs when there was a knock at the door of his room.

"Bruce, I need to talk through some stuff. Are you free or does Tony still need you?" Clint called through the thick wood. Bruce hastily opened the door and let him in, finishing gathering his supplies.

"Listen, Clint, can this wait? Tony and I have a bit of a situation to deal with…"

"I… Natasha kissed me,"

"Oh shit." Bruce nearly dropped the tubing and needle from his arms. This must have triggered whatever happened this morning to make her do this to herself. "Clint, we really need to talk about this later."

Clint's eyes caught sight of the supplies in his arms, "What happened?"

"Uh…" Bruce hesitated, unsure of how much he was supposed to tell, but unable to come up with a convincing lie quickly enough.

"I'm coming with you." Clint demanded, following him into the elevator.

"I really don't think that's a good idea," Bruce said unsteadily. "She's pretty badly hurt. She's unconscious and we need her to stay that way for a few days while she regains her strength."

"Banner, what happened?"

"That's not his to tell you," Tony interjected as the two men walked into the lab. He had covered Natasha with a warm blanket and set up a few provisional instruments for Bruce to work with while helping her recover. "She'll be fine, she just needs to rest."

"Is there something going on between you two?" Clint asked Tony bluntly. "You've spent a lot of time alone together lately and now somehow you get to know why she's hurt and I don't, despite the fact that I am her partner." He was getting visibly angry at Tony by this point, his jealousy seething through his voice, especially after the events of this morning. Bruce was hooking her up to all sorts of machines and he was growing more impatient with the lack of information he had been given. "She's my best friend and I know the most about what she's been through. I really don't appreciate you acting like I don't need to know what's happening with her."

"She asked me not to tell you, okay? If it were up to me, I'd let you handle it, but she specifically asked that you not know."

"Wha-" he responded, taken aback. "Why would she do that?"

"You can ask her when she wakes up, but right now, she needs to rest and you need to calm down."


	9. Chapter 9

It had been three days since Natasha's incident and no one was doing well or getting much sleep. Tony and Clint refused to leave the lab, Tony because he didn't want to give Clint the opportunity to figure out why exactly she was there in the first place and Clint because he refused to leave Tony alone with her. The only time they left was once a day, when Bruce demanded they leave so that he could care for his patient and change her bandages. The rest of the team was clueless, save for knowing that Natasha had some kind of accident that required Bruce to treat her here rather than a doctor at SHIELD headquarters. They trusted Banner enough to not mention the details to anyone outside of the Tower who asked, but everyone was concerned about the assassin. When she finally began to stir, Tony had to physically hold Clint back from getting too close and asking every question he could think of.

"-int?" Natasha said wearily. "Where's Clint? What happened?"

"I'm right here," he replied, breaking out of Tony's grasp. "Something happened and Tony won't tell me, so Bruce has been treating you at the Tower so that you wouldn't have to go to SHIELD. No Nat," he said, when she tried to push herself up to sit. "You need to keep resting."

"He's right," Tony's voice came from behind Clint. "Katniss, can you leave for five minutes now, so that I can talk to her about what happened?"

"I'm not leaving you alone with her, anything you need to say, you can say with me, right Tash?"

"Barton," she cleared her throat. "I need to talk to Stark. You can come back in a few minutes, then we can… Talk."

"Tash, you are my partner. I need to know what's going on with you."

"I will tell you anything you need to know," she said and Tony scoffed at her response. She glared at him, "Do you have something you need to say, Stark?"

"I think your partner would be interested in what I have to say. And I happen to think he does need to know," he replied, daring her with his eyes to test his word.

"Didn't you just ask me to leave, Stark?"

"I've changed my mind."

"Don't do this, Stark," Natasha said warningly, as he advanced toward her and pulled off the blanket that was covering her abdomen. There was some blood still leaking onto the bandages and the shock in Clint's face could not be missed as he saw the dozens of lines still visible above the waistline of her pants.

"What happened?" He gasped, lightly fingering the cuts. "Who did this? Is this Viktoriya? Someone else from the Red Room? I swear, I will hunt down every last one of them if I have to. Is this what you meant? During New York, when you told me I knew you had been unmade like… Like Loki did to me?" He still struggled to admit the power Loki had yielded over him at the time, refusing to admit his loss of control. "This is so much worse, Tash. God, I will find whoever did this to you and kill them in a heartbeat."

"Well, let's hope that's not true," Stark says, ignoring Natasha's obviously furious face. "Because she's sitting right in front of you."

"Wha-" Clint begins, before realization dawns on his face. "Tash…"

If she felt like her legs could hold up her weight, she would have run. This was so much worse than when she kissed him before this happened. She should never have called Stark to help her and she could feel the anger boiling inside her at the thought that he had not only discovered, but revealed her deepest secret to the man that she loved, the man she would die for. It was impossible to stop a panic attack once it began, she had learned, but she did not even feel this one start before she found herself struggling to get air into chest. She had sat up and clutched her stomach, trying to hide the rest of the scars from her partner and was now rocking back and forth. She hated this feeling, being out of control of her emotions, and she only knew one thing that would fix it.

"Stark," she choked out between gasps for air. Her eyes were glassy and she couldn't get them to focus on any one thing in the room, constantly looking around for anything sharp enough to stop this attack. "I need…" Her eyes locked on a small beaker on Banner's side of the lab. If she could just break it and grab one piece, she could use that and be calm in a few seconds. As if on cue, Stark and Clint made eye contact with each other and silently nodded an agreement of how to handle the situation. As soon as Natasha made a move to get off the bed, Clint grabbed her from behind, sat on the table with her, and pulled her into his lap. She thrashed at his grasp and tried, weakly, to fight him to let her go, but she still had little strength. He held her firmly and stroked her hair, muttering quietly in Russian into her ear to soothe her while Stark took everything breakable from the lab.

"You'll be okay," he muttered, pulling her hands from her arms when she attempted to use her nails to draw blood. "Everything is going to be okay."

The minutes passed slowly, but eventually she collapsed against him, sobbing into his chest. Tony returned moments later and took a seat next to the makeshift bed, quietly waiting for her to regain her composure. By the time she had begun to calm down, Bruce had entered the lab for his daily checkup on his patient.

"Natasha, you're awake," he said, as she lifted her head off of Clint's chest to see him.

"Yeah," she said, taking a breath to steady her voice. "Thank you, for this. I, uh, I can go back to my room now, so I won't keep troubling you." She said, hesitantly, but when she tried to stand, her legs collapsed under her and Clint lifted her back onto the table with two arms under hers to support her.

"You'll need to stay for at least another day so that I can monitor your vitals and you can regain another strength to at least walk on your own," Bruce said, visibly assessing her progress and giving a somewhat disdainful look. Natasha seemed to have noticed this and scowled back at him, stating that she would be just fine recovering on her own and accidentally letting it slip that she had actually done worse before.

"That doesn't exactly work in your favor," Stark said quietly.

"I don't give a damn what you think, you meddling asshole."

"Tash," Clint said from behind her, running his fingers through her hair as she sunk further into herself. "We all just want to help you."

"You don't want to help," she said, nearly jumping out of his lap at those words. "You just want to take it away from me and probably make me see a shrink who thinks they can fix me. Well, guess what? You can't. None of you can fix me. You couldn't fix me after Budapest, you couldn't fix me after New York, and you can't fix me now. I can't be fixed, don't worry, they made sure of that. I just want to go back to the way things were before this all got fucked up because nosy old Tony had to go poking around where he didn't belong. I'll stay in the hospital for another night if it will keep you from going to SHIELD, but I am sure as hell not talking to any of you or anyone afterward. I can handle myself."


	10. Chapter 10

Natasha kept true to her word and refused to speak to anyone, except when Bruce asked medical questions. Even then, she kept her responses short, very seldom answering beyond a simple yes or no. Clint and Tony were lost about how to move forward, and had been spending the last day together, switching between furiously scanning her files for more information and debating what to do next. Unfortunately, too much was redacted from her files to glean any more information and their conversations came to dead ends about how to move forward. So the next few weeks passed with everyone at an impasse: Bruce checked her wounds every few days and seemed content with the fact that she had at least seemed not to reopen the deep cuts from that day. That did not mean she had stopped – any of it.

Over the past three weeks, Clint had run into her finishing workouts on the training floor around 5 AM, her body and the floor drenched in sweat, a vacant and deadened look in her eyes. He had tried to get her to talk each time he saw her and had hand-delivered food to her door at every meal, but every attempt was left unanswered. She occasionally spoke to Steve, but did not answer his questions about why she was ignoring the rest of the team.

"Team meeting in five," Steve's voice rang out over the comms in the tower. Natasha was laying on the ground of her bathroom, bleeding from her left bicep. She had found in recent days that if she cut over major muscle groups as the Red Room had, the pain would help her to train harder and work through minor injuries. Punishment and training in one cut, she rationalized, though deep down she knew that running out of room on her upper thighs had meant her little habit was getting out of control. She murmured a curse word under her breath upon hearing Steve's announcement and pressed a washcloth hard against the count in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

"Natasha," the comms sounded again, what felt like only seconds later. "We are waiting on you."

He wasn't impatient yet, but Natasha needed to get down there, so she wrapped a bandage around the wound, threw on a thick and loose sweatshirt, and prayed to whatever powers may be that she wouldn't bleed through during the meeting. She raced down the few flights of stairs to the living room, where Nick Fury and he rest of the team was waiting for her. It was the first time she had seen them all together in a room since New York and the whole team seemed taken aback by her appearance.

"Nat," Clint whispered breathlessly, taking in how worn down she looked and how her hair and body had seemed to thin even since he had seen her this morning.

"So," Fury begins. "We have decided to let Viktoriya go. We can't get enough from her to incriminate, given that all she has admitted is that she played some role in the Red Room."

"What?" Natasha speaks up, suddenly energized by this revelation. "What do you mean you're letting her go? After everything she did to –" she cut herself off.

"If you have further information you can share or get out of her, I'm more than happy to keep her, but what we have just isn't enough."

"Fine, take me to her."

Tony and Clint exchanged a glance as they followed Natasha fuming all the way to Fury's car. This time, Steve, Bruce, and Thor also came, not wanting to be even more out of touch with what was happening on the team. The ride was short, but the air in the car was stuffy and uncomfortable, filled with silent dread about what was to come. Natasha refused to look at anyone during the entire ride, looking straight ahead at the road with a million thoughts running through her head. How could she get this information without exposing what they had done to her? They arrived at the SHIELD facility before she came up with an answer.

Viktoriya looked much worse for wear than the last time Natasha had seen her, but then again, she probably did too.

"Natalia, did they figure you out and send you to me to have?"

"Actually, Viktoriya, I have a few more questions for you."

"Ask away, little prodigy," the words made Natasha shiver. In the observation room, all six men scoffed, knowing things could get so much worse if the woman admitted anything heinous she had done. They just needed the confession.

"The girls that you…" she paused. "Oversaw. What was your role in their training?"

"Nothing direct. But of course, you already knew that, didn't you?"

"What was your role indirectly?"

"Haven't we talked about this already, Natalia?"

"No. I need to know what you, specifically, did to the girls you oversaw."

"I never touched any of the girls. Each of us had one we were responsible for and I assigned missions, trainings, and ordered punishments when necessary."

"What kinds of 'missions?'"

"Taking out targets, extracting information, and anything else that needed to be done."

"In less official terms?"

"We trained you to be assassins, everyone knows that. Do you want me to explain how else we trained you?"

"Describe the punishments you ordered on those you oversaw." Natasha tried to sound calm and demanding but her voice was shaking and she could feel herself getting lightheaded. Over the past few days, she had passed out a few times, usually during or just after her training sessions, either due to blood loss or exertion with little to no food in her system, save for a piece of fruit every other morning.

"Oh, dear Natalia, I think you experienced them best. It is, after all, what made you who you are today. We had lots of tools: starving, handcuffing to the beds for days without water until you begged for any other punishment, the beatings, the cuts and burns, the sex, the torture. Which one do you, or do they, want to know all about?"

She could feel it before it happened – the black spots in her vision clouding the image of the woman sitting in front of her, the taste of metal in her mouth. Then, her head hitting the ground with a sickening thud as Viktoriya just laughed in the background, yanking at her handcuffs, as though they would come undone from the table if she just pulled a little harder.

"Call med bay," Fury sighed.

"No!" Both Tony and Steve interjected quickly.

"Don't you remember how much she freaks out around then?" Clint continued. "And after all of that? No way. Let Bruce take a look while we discuss what just happened."

"I believe I can offer some insight that may be of use," Fury said, ushering them into the conference room next door, where Natasha and Viktoriya's files were projected. "Viktoriya told us yesterday that she only 'managed' one Widow in the program. Natasha."


	11. Chapter 11

Nick leaves the room, allowing the Avengers to consider the information they have just realized. "Maybe we should wait for Dr. Banner to come back," Tony begins.

"Unless, he brings…"

"But what if they…"

"They could, but…"

"Guys!" Steve raises his voice, signaling them to have their conversation with everyone, not just the two of them. "Is there something else we should know here? Because what I heard in there is that Natasha spent years being beaten, starved, sent to kill, and having sex with much older men for information. How do we help her?"

"I mean, do you think it was easier for her to just… get the information than to face the punishments if she didn't?"

"Viktoriya said sex was a punishment, but also a way to get information, how could they use it as both? Isn't sex enjoyable?"

"Okay, Mr. Virgin, it wouldn't be if they were using it to punish her. Maybe instead of making it pleasurable, they did something else during it? Like one of the other punishments so she wouldn't enjoy it?"

"This feels like an invasion of her privacy."

"That's because it is." The squeak of the wheels on the IV pole followed her into the room. She could still deny it, she made sure her questions were phrased so that it was about Viktoriya's girls, not her specifically. They didn't know that all of that had happened to her. Besides, she had only seen her a few times before and Viktoriya had only said she was in charge of Natasha's time to scare her.

"Did Banner release you?"

"I don't need him telling me what to do," she sneered at her partner. "Did we get enough to keep her? I mean the things she told me about what she did to those girls was horrible, I'm almost glad I had my handlers."

"Drop it, Tash. We know."

"You know what?"

"Quit acting dumb, we know that all of that happened to you. She was only in charge of one widow in the program, and it was you."

"She… She was lying, it wasn't that bad. She's trying to make it so that you guys don't want me on the team, so that she can have me back. You can't seriously believe her over me."

"Lady Natasha, you haven't exactly been forthcoming with us."

"I will be! I'll answer any question you want. I promise."

"Why were you in the infirmary earlier this week with Dr. Banner and Tony?"

Silence. She wracked her mind for a good excuse, but she was caught. Tony, Bruce, or Clint would tell the team if she was lying, even if they wouldn't tell them what was wrong.

"I had some injuries that needed to be taken care of."

"We figured out that much, Nat. What kind of injuries?"

"Just some cuts from after Clint and I's mission."

Clint scoffs and Tony rolls his eyes at her, even Bruce gives her a look of disapproval.

"About a month ago, after a mission, Tony found out that Natasha has been – "

"God, you guys are so dramatic! It's no big deal. Why are we doing this here? And no one has told me if they are keeping Viktoriya."

"You're right, let's do this at the tower and let the team decide if it's a big deal. Fury went to speak with some other SHIELD officials to decide if we have enough about Viktoriya to keep her."

Natasha let out a groan of frustration, but followed the men of the team to a car outside waiting to take them to the tower. Her mind was running wild with possibilities once more. Would Steve kick her off the team? Would they have her admitted and claim that she was crazy? Would they know everything that had happened to her now? She supposed that some of Viktoriya's answers were vague, but if this woman really had been her sole handler… The information she could divulge would ruin Natasha's reputation and set the team back even further. It had been silent for too long anyway, surely they'd be called for a mission soon and how would they treat her, even if she was allowed to stay on the team? Would they let her off the helicarrier and put her on getaway driver duty?

Tony and Clint seemed to be wondering similar things as they observed Natasha sitting between them, lost in thought and no doubt planning an escape route. The car rolled to a stop in front of the tower and Clint gently grabbed the widow's arm, pulling her toward the discussion she had dreaded since Clint brought her to SHIELD. This would undoubtedly change both of them and their relationship. Incredibly, she didn't resist much, resigned to the fact that her life as she knew it was officially over the moment she forced the second interrogation of Viktoriya. They trudged up the stairs and sat in the living room, everyone staring at her and saying nothing until Steve broke the silence, ever the team leader.

"So, Natasha, would you like to explain what's going on?"

"There's nothing to explain. Some of my teammates can't mind their own business, so here we are."

"Why don't you tell us what you felt was none of their business."

"Why don't you accept that it's also none of your business?" She snipped back at him, crossing her arms across her chest and refusing to sit on the couch behind her. By standing, she felt she held more power over the men in the room who had assumed less confrontational positions. She almost dared the men to cross her with the murderous look in her eyes, even though she was still frail and attached to an IV pole.

"I'll start for you then," Stark sneered at her. "Natasha has been intentionally cutting herself."

"Why would she…" Steve trailed off, astonished. "Where? I thought surely JARVIS is enabled to alert the team if someone is hurt."

"She disabled my capabilities inside her bathroom and frequently leaves the tower and returns with elevated vitals, sir." The AI chimed into the discussion, leaving Tony fuming that Natasha had toiled with his abilities. He had assumed after the incident at CVS that she was simply sneaking out to continue her habits without his knowing, but she had once again betrayed his trust and been harming herself inside his tower. Worse, she had deliberately tampered with his security system.

"Why would you do that, Natasha?"

"It's fine, you don't have to act like you care. I understand if you don't want me on the team anymore."

"Nat, no one is saying you are off the team. We just need to know why you're doing this."

"I'm not off the team?"

"We need to discuss what's going on, I can't make any decisions until I know why you're doing this and what else might be happening."

"Nothing else is – "

"How much do you weigh?"

"I don't know," she was lying through her teeth, she had weighed in at 83.7 pounds this morning, exactly two-tenths of a pound heavier than yesterday.

"She was severely underweight at 92 pounds a few weeks ago," Bruce interjected, reading his notes. "I would guess she has been tracking it somewhere, so we could probably find it if you enabled JARVIS to scan her room. We would probably find more blades at that point as well. I can't even imagine what else the Red Room has engrained in her as punishments."

She was absolutely defeated. There was nothing left to do that would help her; they would check her room and they would find the notebook she kept her workouts, calories, cuts, and kills in and it would be over. They'd know how many she'd killed, how many innocents lost their lives at her hands. They'd know how many men she'd fucked just to get a bit of information, how many men had fucked her to remind her of her place. They'd know every single punishment she'd ever received, which cuts were hers and which were theirs. How much weight she had lost, every single thing she felt, and how she squashed those feelings. She had to do something.

"If I tell you, will you please let me at least keep some dignity and not search my belongings?"

The men's ears perked up, some more so than others. Tony and Clint were not convinced.

"You have to answer every question and give us your blades."

She gritted her teeth. "Deal."


	12. Chapter 12

"Why do you hurt yourself?" Clint started, as she took a seat on the couch, resigning her power to be level with the men of the room.

"Red Room punishment for mistakes, pretty easy to keep up. Nobody else around here was going to do it."

The men were stunned into silence for a few moments. They had, of course, wanted answers, but they did not anticipate how blunt she was being toward them, nor the answers they were going to receive.

"Do you think that we should be beating you when you make mistakes?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"How else will I learn?"

"By redirection and the help of the team, my god Tash!" Clint was already horrified and Natasha would have smirked if she wasn't still terrified of losing her position on the team. They didn't want these answers any more than she wanted to give them.

"Did they beat you?"

"Not very often, it would have hurt our performance."

"How often is 'not very often?'"

"It was hard to keep track of time. Maybe once or twice a week?"

"When did they start cutting you as punishment?"

"Extraction. I screamed for my parents."

"When did you start cutting?"

She paused, knowing that her answer would likely hurt her archer's feelings more than anyone else in the room.

"Natasha."

"On the helicarrier on the way to SHIELD."

His face instantly fell at her words and she forced herself to look away. She had come with him willingly, but planned to kill herself that night and could not wait that long to punish herself. A part of her had felt relief that she was out of the Red Room. When he found her, her tights were torn and her dress was just a shred hanging off her body, one broken, bloodied heel in her left hand and a gun in her right. She was sure he had guessed what happened, but he had never mentioned it to her again and she never explained. So, when she asked to used the restroom on the plane, he hadn't thought much of it, except that it was weird how she took her broken shoe with her. The whole ordeal included eleven mistakes in all, twelve when she decided to go with him and the broken edge of her heel created her first twelve jagged lines that the Red Room hadn't required. They'd be proud if they recaptured her, she thought, allowing an odd calm to wash over her.

"Natasha," Steve's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Clint was still looking sadly at her.

"I'm sorry, what was the question?"

"Why don't you eat?"

"I'm more useful to the team if I'm small and well-trained. Can't give you more reasons to kick me off."

"How did they torture you?"

"Any way you can think of. To help us practice for being kidnapped."

"What about the other girls? Where are they?"

"Dead. There can only be one best."

"And you're it?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Most kills, most successful missions, least mistakes."

"And the… sex." Clint stammered the words. "You aren't a virgin?"

"Of course not, that's the best way to get information from men." She gritted her teeth and deadened her expression, hoping not to give way to the truth behind the 'sex' she'd had.

"How many?"

"I don't know," it was the most truthful statement she had made all day. How many times had she been woken in the middle of the night to a man entering her while she was handcuffed to her bed? How many times had she been told through her comms to fuck a mark or be killed herself? How many times had she been forced to act weak and let marks fuck her to get the information they needed? How many times had the fucked her while cutting her to ribbons to prove that sex was a weapon, not a pleasurable experience? How could she forget the times she'd nearly died from the punishments she received when her body exploded with pleasure out of instinct before she could prevent it?

"Slut," Tony muttered under his breath. It stung, but she knew she deserved it and so much worse. "I'm getting the blades out of your room while you all finish… this. Where are they?"

"Fake bottom of the nightstand. Bottom of the hamper. Inside the shampoo bottle."

"Jesus," Clint let his head fall into his hands.

"Are we done here?"

"Just one more question," Steve said slowly. "Do you think we should keep you on the team?"

"No." She said simply, walking out of the room with her head down.

"We'll call you back down when we've had a chance to decide what to do."


	13. Chapter 13

For a few minutes, no one spoke. They were stunned into silence about their teammate's revelations, not sure of what to say to one another and yet, not wanting to leave things unsaid.  
"She doesn't want to be here," Tony let out in one breath.  
"She doesn't feel like she deserves to be here, there's a difference. This is her family, of course she wants to be here." The Archer is pacing the room as he speaks. "I can't believe I didn't notice, all those years."  
"Don't do that to yourself, none of us did," Steve sighed, shaking his head in his hands.  
"Even if she wants to be here, she hacked JARVIS, she's been putting the team at risk for who knows how long..."  
"And that means we abandon her? I'm sorry, no. Call me old fashioned, but you don't turn your back on family and we're the closest she's got."  
"There are other things to consider, Steve. If she's insistent of starving herself, she'll continue to have more incidents like today. Combined with blood loss, she could jeopardize the entire initiative. She needs treatment - real treatment. More than I can give her."  
"That's not an option." Clint pipes up, his eyes still trained on the floor. "SHIELD would find out, she would be removed from the Initiative, and likely be re-captured by the Red Room. Whatever is left, anyway."  
"So what are our options?"  
"First of all, you need to stop calling her a slut, Man of Iron. Lady Natasha is, after all, still a lady. It is my assumption that she did not choose to participate in most of the sexual activity that has led her to this point." Thor was unusually quiet, stunning the other men.  
"I hadn't even considered… How old was she when you rescued her, Clint?"  
"She couldn't have been much older than 16."  
"She's been tortured, abused, and likely sexually assaulted for ten years. And none of us even tried to talk to her for the past few years, it's no wonder she turned to self-destruction." The doctor said thoughtfully.  
"But why… I mean, she never exactly trusted us or got comfortable, but she wasn't this bad until the past few months. What happened?"  
"Loki." Clint said, the events suddenly clicking. "Ever since New York, she's been… distant. Cold. What really happened when I was under his… control?"  
The rest of the men fell silent, none wanting to admit what had occurred and why she had pulled away from the team. It made a bit more sense, given what they knew now. Of course, it would have been traumatic if it was the first time, but it now made sense why she was dissociating more often and slipping back into Red Room habits.  
"What is it? Did I do something?"  
"No! Not… you, exactly. It was Loki. Magic and monsters and nothing any of us was prepared for, except maybe the God here." Bruce shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair thoughtfully as Clint's eyes darkened. "Loki decided that Natasha loved you. And he already had you under his control. She tried her best to pretend it was because she owed you a debt, but he knew better. He…. He told her that he would force you to kill her slowly and intimately, in every way she feared."  
"Right, but she's not dead. She told me about all of that."  
"We all thought that… The Other Guy had knocked her out. The next we heard from her was that she copied that you were headed to her location. We didn't know that you had already been there. That you… had already engaged her."  
"Agent Romanoff was sexually assaulted when you were under Loki's control. He forced you to force her. And to fill in the gaps here so that we all get there quicker: she was probably trying to fix her flashbacks by getting close to you again and kissing you of her own accord. That sent her spiraling." Tony finished. "And before you go freaking out, none of us blame you. But we need you to hold it together, because we need to fix Natasha."  
There were a million thoughts running through Clint's head, he was panicking in a way that he never had before. Sure, he'd had an anxiety attack or two, but never like this. Never where he felt like his chest was caving in on itself and the whole room was spinning. He had hurt Natasha. He had raped her. He was disgusting, absolutely and completely a failure of a man, an agent, and a protector. He had told her that she would be safe with SHIELD and then he had… Bile rose in his throat and he ran to the trashcan before hurling the contents of his stomach into the cylinder. How could he face her? How could he face the team? Why had they kept this from him? He had to see her, had to apologize, had to do something to make this right. Could he make this right? The team yelled behind him as he darted up the stairs to her room.

She was frantically packing her belongings into a few suitcases, tears streaming down her face, frail arms clutching her stomach to hold back the sobs that wracked her body. No one had thought to come confiscate her blades yet, so she was moving to grab them when she felt a presence behind her, standing in the doorframe.  
"Tash," she turned around slowly, taking a shaky breath to steady herself. The pair exchanged a few meaningful glances, not saying a word.  
"I had hoped you'd never find out," she sobbed, walking slowly toward him. She was scared, but a larger part of her ached to be in his arms, feeling the comfort she knows that she would find in them.  
"You didn't have to do this alone. I can never apologize enough for what…"  
"Stop, you didn't do this. I did," she cried harder as she fell into him. "I did this. If I had fought you harder, if I had been stronger…"  
"You couldn't have been stronger than me, Tash. You're usually better than me, but you're not better than me AND Loki. He knew every step you'd make, every single thing you would do, you couldn't have won."  
"I could have fought differently, changed up my style…"  
"This was not your fault."  
"All of this is m-"  
"This. Was not. Your. Fault."  
"But Clin-"  
"This was not your fault." They slide down to the ground, Natasha in Clint's arms. She was shaking and hated to admit it, but she was still scared of him touching her at all. But he held her anyway, stroking her hair, and repeating the phrase until she fell asleep in his arms. He wasn't sure how long after, but he fell asleep too.


	14. Chapter 14

After a few more hours of discussing, Steve, Bruce, Thor, and Tony went to Natasha's floor to find the pair of assassins asleep in a heap on the floor. Steve carried them carefully to Natasha's bed after carefully putting the suitcases on the floor, which they unpacked after ensuring that the noise would not wake Clint or Natasha. Tony got straight to work searching every inch of her floor for hidden blades and became visibly upset when he found that Natasha had not disclosed every location when he asked only a few hours earlier. He found more than 30 blades hidden all over the floor, as well as a few lighters and several piles of uneaten food. Other confiscated items included a scale, shaving razors, medicine bottles, tape measures, and a few additional hollowed books, one with a journal inside that Tony made a mental note to read later. As Thor and Steve unpacked her things, Bruce and Tony set to work re-enabling JARVIS in all areas of Natasha's floor, as well as adding several additional levels of encryption and alerts if she chose to tamper with his capabilities again. Bruce added some code which would track vitals and keep a log of Natasha's caloric intake and output, accounting for her Basal Metabolic Rate, which was enhanced by the Red Room's attempts at the Super Soldier Serum. They spent the majority of the next morning writing a meal plan and reconditioning pattern to help Natasha heal as much as they could. At around 9:45 AM, they were alerted by JARVIS that Natasha was having the vital indications of a panic attack and rushed to her floor.  
"Is everything okay?"  
She was frozen in place, but her eyes were trained on Clint's body next to her in the bed.  
"Nat, think. You're still clothed. You're not injured. You're completely safe. Do you remember any of yesterday?"  
Her eyes grew even wider in fear as she realized what had occurred yesterday. She sat bolt upright, jostling Clint as his shoulder slipped off her body. As he woke up, she was rubbing her shoulder where his had been resting and her eyes were darting around the room, taking in all of the subtle changes. Quickly realizing what must have happened, she frantically opened her nightstand drawer and found the false bottom had been removed. In the same haste, she threw open her bathroom door and poured out all of her shampoo, searched every book, looked under loose floorboards, and ran down the hall to search other rooms. Bruce and Steve made moves to restrain her, but Tony stopped them.  
"She needs to calm down first."  
Clint was rubbing his eyes groggily, but seemed to grasp what was happening rather quickly. Down the hall, Natasha screamed and all five men came rushing in after her.  
"Where the fuck is all of my stuff?"  
"Everything you've hidden to hurt yourself has been removed," Bruce said calmly.  
"You have no right! I'll move out of this tower, this is not fair! That was my property."  
"You are welcome to move out of the tower, but if you do so, we will have to inform SHIELD of the circumstances and have you removed from the Avengers Initiative." Steve had rehearsed the line a thousand times as she slept, but his voice still shook with every syllable.  
"I knew it. I knew you'd kick me off the team. I told you, Clint. They all hate me. It's all my fault. They don't want me here. They're going to tell SHIELD and ruin my life and send me back to the Red Room because that's all I'm good for. I told you all. That's all I'm good for. And here you are, proving me right. Why did you unpack my suitcases? Just to give me one more thing to do?"  
"Natasha, calm down. I'm sure there's an explanation here."  
At that exact moment she became even more enraged. How dare he tell her to calm down after everything she had worked for was falling apart in front of her eyes? She searched the room for something, anything she could use to hurt herself. The men just stared at her, waiting for this to calm down. She ran past them back to her bedroom and locked the door before they could follow.  
"JARVIS, unlock Natasha's bedroom door." The door clicked just as she smashed the lightbulb in her lamp and grabbed a shard. The men rushed into the room and tried to calm her down, but she quickly brought the shard to her exposed wrist and drew a deep, jagged line before Thor could restrain her. He got his arms around her and proud the piece out of her hand, but the damage was done and her eyes were rolling lazily, reveling in the pain now pulsing through her arm. Everything around her was muted and blurry in the background of the searing pain, but she faintly felt someone wrap her wrist and apply pressure. The pressure made the cut sting even more and she relished the feeling before a cream was applied that numbed the area and the world came rushing back to her all at once. She was in a man's lap, being restrained and stared at by four more men, including him. Clint. Or Loki. Was it Clint or Loki? She couldn't tell. She thrashed in his arms away from the others, but she couldn't move.  
"Stop!"  
"Nat-"  
"No! I don't want to!"  
"Tash-"  
"Stop! Please!"  
"Thor, let her go."  
"But the lam-"  
"She's scared, let her go." He released his grasp and she scurried into the opposite corner of the room, hugging her arms protectively around her legs in a small ball.  
"Deep breaths, Nat. This is not your fault," his voice was clear, not riddled with the foreign vocabulary or harsh edges as that day. "This is not your fault. You are safe. You are okay. Just breathe for us."  
"Miss Romanoff's heart rate is slowing down."  
"Keep talking to her," Tony said.  
"This is not your fault. It wasn't your fault then and it isn't now. This is not your fault."  
"-lint?" She began to come out of her trance and her teammates came back into her view.  
"I'm here, Tash. You're okay."  
"But they're going to send me back," she glared at the other men.  
"No, actually. The choice is yours." Tony's voice broke through. "You have two choices, the way we see it. Or three. So here are your options: You can pack your bags and leave, but we will tell SHIELD everything and force you to seek treatment, you'll probably be removed from the Initiative, and be forced to ride a desk for the rest of your career. But we figure that's not really a choice for you." He exchanged glances with the rest of the team. "Or, you can let us help you as best as we can, stay in the tower, and adhere to our rules. If you make that choice, you WILL get better, but you'll stay on the team and no one eats SHIELD has to know."  
She scoffed. "Not much of a choice, is it?"  
"You're free to do whichever, but we will not let you destroy yourself," the Captain tells her firmly.  
"Or I can go back to Russia, they'll keep me off SHIELD's radar."  
"We know you don't want that."  
She averted her eyes from meeting his. It was true, she would never go back there. Ever.  
"So, what do you want to do?"


	15. Chapter 15

"You know what my choice is," she sighed. "It's not like it's much of a choice, anyway."

"Okay, let's go over some rules." Steve, always one for regulations to follow begins. "First, you can't leave the tower without one of us unless it's SHIELD, in which case Happy will drive you there and back. When you're out with us, you'll be with one of us at all times. Now, obviously, we can't go to the bathroom with you, so if we're out and you use the restroom, we'll have to do a body check afterward. In the house, JARVIS will monitor you so that you can still have some freedom, but you cannot do any workouts or physical activity until further notice and you'll have to eat all three meals with us, plus at least one snack. If you tamper with JARVIS at all, we will need to more to 24/7 surveillance by one of us. We're also going to do talk circles twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. We'll all share, but we'll be focused on you."

"I take it you're not very open to negotiating."

"No we are-" Tony started.

"We'll hear you out."

"Okay, checking my body every single time I have to pee when we're out in public is a little outrageous. What if we just do a time limit?" She was more than a bit pissed off about the restrictions, but she was no teenager. She knew that screaming and crying "unfair" would do nothing. Steve looked at the others before nodding his approval of this adjustment.

"3 minutes."

"I don't think I'll get much of anywhere on the rest of those, so I suppose that will be okay for now." The wheels were already turning in her head of how to avoid these regulations. "Can I know what JARVIS is set to monitor?"

"Vital signs, and any other markers indicative of injury. Nothing too invasive."

She scoffed at this remark.

"We could have programmed a daily log of every single action you take, Red." Tony remarked, attempting to mollify the nervous woman. "Speaking of daily activities, time for lunch."

"I'm not hun-"

"No, Nat." Clint says gently, "That's not going to work anymore. In fact, today is the day we figure out how bad things got. We're going to need to weigh you before we eat today."

"You're kidding," Natasha practically spits at them. "I'm naturally thin, it's not a problem. I just don't get hungry quite as often as all of you men. My body requires less food than you all, that's just a fact."

They dragged her downstairs anyway, where a full medical scale was set up.

"Can I have five minutes? To use the restroom, get a glass of water?"

"I suppose," Dr. Banner affirms for the other men. She rushes to grab a glass and head to the bathroom, where she fills it up several times and drinks the entire contents. She frantically searches through the small room and finds a few decorative rocks in the potpourri container, quickly shoving them into the lining of her underwear before emerging with a fake smile plastered on her face. "Go ahead and step on the scale backwards."

Bruce makes a tut noise, writes down '85.2 pounds,' and resets the scale before Natasha can see the number. He shows the other men, whose reactions are something between scared and sad. They usher her to the table and she excuses herself to the bathroom again, tasting copper, this time running for the toilet and falling to her knees before throwing up pure water for almost a full minute. In a perfect storm of events, as she stands to wipe her face off, one of the rocks falls from underneath her shorts just as Bruce rounds the corner to see what the noise was.

"Right, so let's try this again. This time just in your underwear. I'm sorry that it has to be this way, but you should not have tried to trick us the first time."

"Bruce, I can't… The rest of them haven't…" She trails off, leaving the weight of her unspoken words hanging in the air. "Please," she rasps. "I can't.. I can't be exposed like that with him there…"

"I'm sorry, Nat. They need to know, including him."

She hesitantly removes the long t-shirt and shorts she had been wearing, allowing the men to bear witness to the damage she had done. Everyone but Bruce and Tony were stunned as she came out of the bathroom, barely more than skin and bones, with hundreds of cuts littering her body. Thor let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he was holding in, Steve simply steeled his face to be devoid of emotion, and Clint openly shed a tear. What had he allowed his best friend to become?

82.0 was what they had let her become. A shell of herself. Clint had to leave the room so that the others would not be disturbed by his crying as they tried to reintegrate Natasha into mealtimes at the tower. He headed for his floor and briefly considered going to shoot, but argued that he deserved to feel this guilt, he did not deserve the reprieve and clear mind that shooting would bring him at a time like this. No, he deserved to sit with the guilt and feel as bad, if not worse than Natasha felt. He deserved to feel just as hurt as she did for doing such a vile, disgusting thing to her. Even if he had no control over the situation, he should have found a way to do better - she deserved better, she was his partner. But more than that, he loved her. And he had hurt her. Irreparably broken her beyond strong limits that he thought no one could touch. It wasn't just that what he had done was repugnant - he himself was an awful excuse for a man and partner. It was in that moment that he decided what he needed to do. He deserved to feel the pain that Natasha now lived with because of him, and he would ensure that he did. With everyone still preoccupied trying to get Natasha to eat the carrots, roast, and whole grain roll in front of her, Clint snuck out the front door of the tower and darted to the very CVS around the corner where things had begun to unwind for Nat.

"2 packs of lights," he told the teenage clerk behind the counter.

"What kind?"

"Whatever is cheapest," he replied, as he couldn't use Tony's money for this particular project. He thrusted a few bills at the clerk in exchange for the boxes of cigarettes and then rounded a corner, entered a public bathroom inside a Target and began burning holes into his abdomen, one for every day that Natasha had to live with the trauma he caused.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: I write these when I get into a depressive episode and get triggered, so I am sorry if they come in spurts. This is more of a passion project and it doesn't seem like many people are interested because I only have 1 review haha, it feels a bit like shouting into the void, but sometimes I come back and read it and it makes me feel pretty okay about my writing skills. There are, of course, some errors here and there, but this story has been living in my head for so long that it deserves to be shared, even if it's only for me and my one fan :)

T/W: There is an implication of future underage sex and more explicit discussion of sexual acts in this chapter, as well as some minimal description of torture.

When he returned to the tower, Clint had dozens of neat lines of perfect circles on his abdomen and a pack and a half of cigarettes in his pocket. It stung every time his skin stretched over his muscles as he walked and he sadistically smiled at the pain, certain that it was nothing compared to what Natasha felt.

"Where have you been? She refuses to eat for any of us and says she wants to talk to you first."

"Hey Nat," he says, taking a seat at the table gently next to her. He gingerly holds himself in a way that the burns on his stomach ache but not excruciatingly so. "What's up?"

"You can't let them do this, they're ruining all of my training."

"Nat, we've talked about this," he shifts so that his body is angled toward hers. The food in front of her has gone cold in the time he was gone and looked fairly unappealing, but he knew that she could not afford to lose another pound. "That's not your training. Sparring with me, shooting with Steve, that's training. Not this. This is punishment and it's punishment you don't deserve."

"You don't understand, you weren't supposed to know. You weren't supposed to find out what he did."

"Nat, you didn't tell me, it's not your fault."

"It was my job to protect you and I failed. I don't deserve food. I can't eat this." It broke his heart to hear her say those words and he knew immediately that he needed a new approach for this. They would have to tackle her thoughts about what she deserved later, but for now he planned to use his own harmful logic to help her.

"Okay, but you protected me for how many weeks? That's worth something. How about this, how about you get one bite for every day you protected me?"

"I guess… That makes sense…"

"Do you want me to heat it up for you?"

"No." She slowly reached out, starting with the carrots and taking cautious, small bites. Then, she slowly ate half of the roll and a few bites of meats before pushing the plate away again. "There. I did it. Can I be excused now?"

"It's Monday, let's go to the living room so we can talk." She begrudgingly walked toward the common space, escorted closely by Clint and Steve. Steve gave him a look, behind Natasha's back so that she couldn't see, silently telling him that what she had eaten was not good enough. He knew. But they could only expect so much on the first day, and he was sure that they could use this strategy to continue helping her. He couldn't ignore the stinging on his stomach as Natasha leaned against him on the couch, and he uncomfortably shifted so that her weight was on his shoulder instead. She gave him an odd glance, but settled herself nonetheless.

"Okay, would you like to do something easy or hard today? I know it's been a hard day, but you might want to get the hard stuff out of the way now and save the simpler things…" Steve trailed off.

"Whatever you guys want," she yawned against Clint's shoulder, letting her hair fall in front of her eyes and temporarily hide her from the incredulous stares of her teammates. Tony looked around the circle before broaching what the team found to be the most important subject.

"Viktoriya has been detained in a maximum security facility pending further questioning. We want to know what we're going to hear before the team goes in." He was met with a look of confusion from Natasha. "We want to know exactly what happened in the Red Room. Not questions and answers, because we don't really know what to ask. We want you to tell us what happened, what a typical day was like for you. So that Viktoriya can't surprise us. If it would be easier, we can use augmented reality to go into the memory with-"

"No." She objected immediately, jostling Clint as she sat bolt upright. "I'll just… I'll tell you, but… No. You can't do that to yourselves." The men silently agreed with slight head nods. "When do you want me to start?"

"Let's start with when you were ten," Bruce piped up. "That seems to be when you would have been treated best, when you were the top of… your class."

"You won't like that choice," she sighed, bringing her knees to her chest and letting out a deep breath. "But okay."

— Flashback —

She woke on a bare mattress with no feeling in her hands. Both wrists had been handcuffed above her bed last night because she had devised a way to remove the cuffs when one hand was free and, yesterday, she was beaten for it. Her whole body was sore, but at least they did not have a ballet performance for another two weeks. She was grateful for this, but she also knew that is why she had received the rough punishment that left her back aching and more of her body bruised than not. A room attendant came over to her bed and unlocked the cuffs, handing her a paper with her day's schedule written on it. She rubbed her wrists to regain some blood flow as she looked over the schedule and saw that she was to report to ballet for five hours that morning, followed by the usual Interrogation Training, Combat Drills, and Elimination. In the middle of her schedule, though, around the time most people would expect a lunch break, was a new class called 'Art of Seduction' followed by an unfamiliar word she couldn't quite pronounce, but looked to be Italian - fellatio. It was never a good thing when classes were added to her schedule unexpectedly, and she dreaded the afternoon as she stripped and dressed in her ballet tights, leotards, and pointe shoes. There was no privacy in the barren room where the girls slept, just rows of beds identical to hers, with a single black trunk at the end. The only designation that separated one bed form the next was the Widow Number on the trunk, surrounded by tally marks for their running record of kills. A daily reminder of what she had done, with extra deep marks for the other widows she had eliminated from the program. She knew all of their names and ages by heart, vowing not to forget what she had done to get to where she was.

"Natalia, you are nearly late. Warm up quickly," the ballet instructor chastised her as she ran into the room gracefully. She quickly ran through a number of stretches and technique basics before joining her fellow widows on the floor and running through their choreography perfectly for nearly 4 hours, ending with one hour of pure conditioning. By the end of the class, he feet, abdomen, and back ached for rest, but she instead had to run to change for interrogation and combat. It was difficult to keep track of time in this place, with no sunlight or clocks visible to the girls, but she had guessed that it was about 10 AM, as they were typically woken up around 4:30 AM and ballet had lasted 5 hours. After being nearly late to ballet, she knew that she could not afford to let her thoughts wander like this.

In Interrogation Training, she was in a small room with only one instructor and none of her peers. It was best, she was told, to have no support as interrogation would be done independently in the field. She had never been captured and tortured on any of her assignments, but she assumed that one day someone would outsmart her and it was vital that she understand how to withhold the secrets of the organization. Today was actually not as tortuous as usual, they only used sound and cuts. The man had begun by playing the "good cop," offering her an extra ration if she talked. Then, he moved on to placing headphones on her, with her arms strapped behind her and her eyes covered, and played a tone that made her want to tear her ears off of her head. When she still resisted giving him information, she was strapped to a table and once again given the opportunity to talk. She refused and the man took a sharp knife and slit her side five times. Still, she refused, and again, he moved to make a small stab wound just below her ribs. She never broke and so, was released to her next scheduled training.

Since her shirt had been cut to shreds, she was allowed to run to the sleeping quarters and get a new one before attending her new class. She was greeted by the unusual sight of desks in rows with pads of paper and pencils placed at each desk.

"Happy birthday, Natalia," the male instructor greeted her. "You are ten years old today, so you will add a new dimension to your training that will assist you greatly. Class, please welcome Widow 1136. She has the most kills of anyone in program history."

"Welcome," the other girls greeted. There were only nine of them total, one from each class above her plus her. She had assumed that all of the girls in the 19 class had been sent on more long-term assignments and they were generally kept separate form the younger girls. Natalia took a seat in the front row of three, in the center seat of three and almost felt like a normal school girl for once. Until the instructor began lecturing and the girls around her began furiously scribbling in the notepads with words unfamiliar to her like cleavage, penis, and sex. The man briefly stopped the course of his normal lecture to ask one of the other widows to explain what sex was to her and the widow next to her explained the process, which utterly repulsed Natalia. Their body's were weapons, why was she expected to sully her weapon with such acts?

"As I was saying," he continued. "Sex will be one of the most powerful tools you can use to extract the information we need from your marks. You are no longer meant to simply kill them and gain whatever information you can from their surroundings, but now to get information directly from the source."

Whatever confusion she left that class with about her new role was quickly resolved by fellatio class. She learned how to expertly pleasure a man with her hands and mouth, first on an item called a "dildo," then on her instructor's penis. He was more violent than the controlled experience of the dildo, where she set the pace and slowly tried different techniques with the odd plastic in her mouth. When her instructor took her mouth, he was rough and pulled her hair, choking her on his penis, and spewing a warm, white liquid all over face at the end.

"Next time, you swallow." He slapped her hard across the face and turned her around to the rest of the class, white liquid still plastered on her face. The older widows laughed at her mistake and made fun of her inability to please a man, claiming that she must not truly be the top of her class and that she would never make it.

She carried that anger into elimination and, with her face still sticky, she broke the neck of her opponent in the first few minutes of the elimination round, not even bothering to see which peer she had killed. That night, she carved one deep line into her trunk and then followed the room attendant with the trunk to a private room, where she was told she would sleep from now on. The new room contained only one bed, her trunk, and allowed her the luxury of her own shower. The water was cold and she could barely stand for more than a few minutes, but she got to rinse the sticky substance off her face and wring the blood out of her hair. As she tried to sleep that night, she quickly realized why her interrogation was so tame earlier that day - she was being given sleep deprivation interrogation in her own room, with loud music piped in through hidden speakers and bright lights that she could not turn off. She laid in bed staring at the ceiling for several hours before her instructor from Fellatio came to her room and pulled his pants down in front of her. His soft penis was hanging limp, not fully hard and pointed toward her as it had been earlier.

"Time to learn how to swallow."


	17. Chapter 17

The boys looked around the room at each other, not sure of how to respond to what they had just learned about their teammate. They had known the horrors she had faced in the Red Room to an extent, but none of them had dreamt that the true extent was this horrifying. Even Clint, who had perhaps the best grasp on the situation solely based on the state he had found her in, was stunned into silence as she finished her story of her tenth birthday.

"Pretty fucked up, Red," Tony said quietly.

"Not really, if you think about it. They needed us to be deadly and to get the information they needed. They did what they had to do to help us to do just that."

"But you do understand that it was wrong, right? I mean, SHIELD gets the information it needs, but they don't do… that."

"It takes them, what, a few weeks of recon to do it? It took the Red Room one evening with one of us in the field to get the information we needed, take them out, and move on with their missions. It was just more efficient, that's all."

"I don't understand Earth," Thor interjects quietly.

"That's so… wrong."

"That's being a widow. You asked, I told you that you wouldn't want to hear it."

"So, what happened from then on?"

"It was a fairly logical progression, fellatio for a few weeks until the right… skills were deemed satisfactory." She shuddered and hugged her legs closer, suddenly insecure about her training. "Then other foreplay techniques, intercourse, anal sex, kink training… The seduction classes became a daily addition to my schedule, the eliminations were once or twice a year until there was just me. Then, it was all about enhancing my skills with even more methods of torture to withstand, more violent and niche kinks, and some random skills."

The men in the room were visibly uncomfortable, but tried, for their part, not to show it.

"And how often…" Clint began. "How often did they… test your skills?"

"I don't want to answer that."

"Nat, it's important that we know." Bruce said gently, quickly cut off by Tony's words.

"Was that what she meant, by her almost wanting to try you out herself?" Natasha refused to make eye contact. "So that's a yes, then. How often? Was it always just the instructor?"

"During my training, yes." She spoke so quietly that they barely heard her words.

"And what about at night? In your… room?"

She was silent once again.

"Nat, come on."

"I lost track." She said shortly.

"Every night? Every week? Just a ballpark here, Red."

"More than that."

"More than what? More than every ni-" Tony interrupted himself. "Oh."

"Can we be done here?"

"Not quite, we have one more question because it may be important to the team." Steve stated as she tried to make her way off the couch. "Who was the Winter Soldier? Viktoriya said that he was one of the men who…. Got to enjoy you."

"America wasn't the only country that wanted a Super Soldier, Captain." Her voice was dripping with malice as she darted quickly to the elevator. She had a hunch and hoped it was correct as she headed to Steve's floor. Tony had stocked his bathroom with the old kind of safety razor so that Steve would feel more at home and the blades for those were sturdy and sharp when new; she was hoping that he still had some clean ones and that JARVIS wasn't enabled on his floor in the same way that he was on her floor. The boys didn't make a move to follow her when she got off the couch, so she assumed that they were still in shock of what she had told them. When the elevator landed on Steve's floor, she was met with the eerily silent halls leading to his room. It was fairly barren inside, with only a few photographs on the nightstand and his shield in the corner; the bed was made perfectly and the bathroom looked untouched, but there was a razor on the side of the sink. She began opening cabinets and silently thanked whatever higher power existed that he did have a pack of blades that was untouched and unopened, she grabbed one from the package and quickly darted from the room, careful to leave everything exactly the way it was. Tucking the wrapped blade into the lining of her bra, she walked to the elevator to find it occupied. The boys were on their way to room, two floors above. She thought quickly about her options. They would beat her to her room and she didn't want to be caught here, so she quickly ran down the stairs to the training floor. At least if they caught her here, they wouldn't find out what she took. A few moments later, they emerged from the elevator to her doing target practice with a Glock in her hand.

"Natasha, you are not allowed to train," Thor said.

"Come on big guy, it's not like this burns many calories." She said shakily.

"JARVIS, please pull up Natasha's caloric stats for the day." Tony said. "See that red, Red? That means you've burned more calories than you've eaten. So no training. Besides, we're not done talking yet."

"What more do you want to know? Have I not repulsed you yet?"

"None of that was your fault. But you can help us. Any information about the Winter Soldier could help us."

"What? You want to know how good he was in bed? I don't know anything about him other than how he liked to fuck." Rogers visibly twitched at her language, and she briefly smirked. "He liked his girls tied down more than just the handcuffs. And he liked to be in control the whole time, his favorite thing to do was to make his girls ride him and then slam them into the bed, sometimes hitting their head on the way down." All of the men were showing physical discomfort at this point and she let them keep wriggling as she spoke. "He liked to leave bruises on the thighs and stomach, where the ballet tights and leotard would cover it enough that they'd let him keep doing it. He loved it when his girls would writhe in terror and slit their wrists on the handcuffs. He loved to-"

"ENOUGH."

"That's" she spit the words like venom, taking a brief pause to meet each of their glances. "What I know about him." She put the Glock on the table in front of her, barrel facing down range, safety on, like a perfectly trained soldier even in the heat of the moment. Then she stalked out of the room and up to her room.


	18. Chapter 18

"Natasha, let us in," Tony knocked lazily on her door. "I can just have JARVIS let us in, but I'd rather you just open the door."

She was in a bit of a trance, hearing him but not quite fully aware of what he was saying as she walked to her bathroom.

"Calm down, Stark. Won't JARVIS tell you if anything happens anyway?"

The men gathered outside of her room nod silently, admitting that she was right. None of them moved, just leaned against various walls and silently exchanged meaning through glances. Hearing no further protests, she slid to the floor of the bathroom, her bony spine leaning against the side of the bathtub as she assembled what she needed to do this without getting caught. She had a roll of toilet paper at her side, which would be messier, but she could flush away the evidence. She had the blade stolen from Steve's bathroom. Now all she had to deal with was making sure that her vitals remained the same. Typically when she cut, her heart would be racing before she did anything because she would be having some kind of flashback or panic, then she would calm down as soon as the cool blade ripped a neat line into her flesh. At least, that's how it felt to her. Her heart was beating normally now, so if she could keep it that way, they would never find out.

She had failed to account for the fact that, while the cuts made her feel calm, they did elevate her heart rate as a pain response. She had barely made three cuts before a literal siren started blaring through the tower, indicating that her vitals had spiked out of the normal range. Seconds later, the doors all clicked signaling that they were unlocked and Natasha stuffed the blade quickly back into the side of her bra. Her teammates were in the bathroom with her as soon as her hands returned from her chest and Tony immediately let out a sigh at the sight of the blood on her arm.

"Where is it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"We can see the blood, Lady Natasha."

"Stand up, Red. Bruce, can you please take her to the lab and clean the cuts?" The other men stayed and searched every inch of her room for whatever she had used to harm herself.

"Nat, you can't keep doing this," Bruce told her gently. "This is going to sting." He warns her as he sprays the wounds with rubbing alcohol to disinfect the cuts thoroughly. She swore quietly, but loved the additional pain that it brought her temporarily. "One of these days, you'll cut the wrong spot and nick a vein or cut too deeply and need stitches. There is no version of this where things end well. Do you get that? Do you understand that this ends with you stopping or dying? Because those are the two ways this ends, Nat. If you are not recovering, you are dying."

"Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing."

"You can't possibly think that. What about the team? What about SHIELD? What about all the good you've done and will do? What about your future, Nat?"

"What future? You know just as well as I do that this career isn't one where you retire happily at age 65 and live happily ever after. This is my future. And what about the team? And SHIELD? What about me, Bruce? Why do I always have to take care of everyone else? Why can't I be selfish just this once and care about ME? Doesn't anybody care about me?"

"Of course we do. We care about what's best for you. And this," he motions to her arms as he wraps them. "Is not what's best for you."

"Well neither is being kept up by flashbacks all night or living with the things that have happened to me, so."

"I am not going to watch you destroy yourself."

"Then don't watch." She yanks her arm out of his grasp and goes back up to her room where Tony, Clint, and Thor are still searching for her blade. She ignores their questions and their presence all together, opting to lay on her bed and pretend to be asleep for the rest of the afternoon. At some point, she did fall asleep and woke several hours later, a scream stuck in her throat and the moonlight streaming in through her windows. Steve was leaning against the doorframe when she sat up and made a move to sit on the edge of her bed as she wiped the grogginess from her eyes.

"You missed dinner," he mused lightly. "JARVIS let us know that your heart rate was elevated, but that you were still sleeping so I came to check on you."

"Great, so I've pissed everyone off yet again." She sighed. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable earlier, I just… It's hard to talk about."

"I know. Well, I don't really know, but I can imagine. It's hard for me to talk about Peggy, but talking about her also helps me feel a little better when I'm alone later and the thoughts creep in."

"Listen, Steve, I know what you're trying to do and I appreciate it, but that's just not really how this works for me."

"I know, it must be much harder for you. Sometimes it's that hard for me when I think about… the war." He adjusts his position on the bed and turns his head to the floor instead of facing her. "I lost my best friend and the things I saw… I don't think that I could ever forget that. It keeps me up more nights than not. It's not… the same. But I do understand why you don't want to talk about what happened. I get it."

"Steve, I didn't even think… If you ever need to talk, I'm here. I can listen."

"I don't want to be a burden to the team. Even when I tried to see counselors, it was too much for most of them to handle."

"I think I'm a bit more used to hearing those kinds of things."

"You shouldn't be."

"Steve, don-"

"No, Nat. You shouldn't have seen those things, done those things, had those things happen to you… I can never apologize enough to you for having to go through that. And for not protecting you when it happened with Loki."

"Steve, that wasn't your fault, you couldn't have done anything. I could hav left the program sooner, I could have fought him sooner, it was my-"

"Stop." He says firmly. "It was not your fault. I don't know how many times you need to hear that, but I will say it to you until you start believing it. What happened to you was not your fault. You were a kid. It was not your fault."

"I wasn't a kid in New York."

"If it was Pepper, or Jane, or anyone else… Would you tell them it was their fault that they were assaulted?"

"No, of course not. They're not trained, they don't-"

"No, that's all there is. It would not have been their fault and it. Wasn't. Yours." She sighs in frustration, but something at the back of her mind was telling her to believe him. Now he and Clint had both tried to convince her that it wasn't her fault, it was possible that they were both wrong, but the logical side of her brain was insistent that it was highly unlikely that they were both lying to her. "And Nat?"

"Hmm?" She mused, still being pulled from her thoughts by his words.

"Can you please give me back my razor blade?"

"How did-"

"I kept count after we found out, Nat. I'm sorry, but we have to be careful with you. We can't lose you, we care too much about you."

She slowly lifted her shirt and he quickly averted his eyes out of habit as she retrieved the blade from its hiding spot on her person.

"Thank you."


	19. Chapter 19

The next few days passed without incident from Natasha, though she had made minimal progress with eating and grew even more anxious by the moment. Her teammates had tried to be helpful and offer half-hearted suggestions like snapping her wrist with a rubber band or holding an ice cube tightly every time she wanted to harm herself, but she had been conditioned to withstand much more painful encounters and the temporary solutions did nothing to abate her rising anxiety and urge to cut. Nothing replaced the feeling of a blade against her skin and, worse still, she could feel herself gaining weight by the second. Every morsel of food they forced her to eat felt sticky against the inside of her stomach and sloshed as she walked, disgusted with what her body was becoming. In reality, she had only gained three pounds and Bruce was disappointed with the speed of her progress. He has expected that by cutting exercise completely, she would gain weight more quickly, but had failed to account for the simple fact that she barely ate a few hundred calories a day and even that was a constant battle. Considering her Basal Metabolic Rate, she should still be losing weight. It made no sense other than her body being pushed into starvation mode and hanging onto everything she ate.

By Friday, they had to discuss giving her an NG tube if she continued to refuse to eat an appropriate amount of food. It would be difficult to explain if Maria or Nick stopped by unexpectedly and they knew she would resist, but the field had been quiet for too long and they knew a mission would come soon. They simply could not afford for her to make such slow progress with the possibility of a mission looming. So when they sat her down for discussion on Friday, they had to make another ultimatum: either SHIELD is notified of her condition or she eats at least 2,000 calories a day.

"Even if you laid in bed and did literally nothing all day, at your height and weight, your body still burns about 1,200 calories. To gain two pounds a week, you need to eat 7,000 calories a week on TOP of that 1,200 a day. You should be eating 2,200 to make the progress we need to see."

"Absolutely not. I can't eat that much, I've never eaten that much."

"Your other option," Bruce continued "is to have us insert an NG tube which goes from your nose to your stomach and feeds you. But if Maria or Nick stops by or we have to go on a mission, it will be extremely uncomfortable to remove it and re-insert it at that frequency, so SHIELD would need to be notified."

"This can't seriously be happening." She nearly shouted. "First, you take away the only thing that makes the nightmares go away. Now you want to ruin my training all together? Are you serious? You can't be serious."

"You cannot go on missions if you keep losing weight." Steve says it in a tone that leaves no room for discussion.

"Steve," she pleads. "Please, I gave you the blade. Please don't take this too."

"No, Nat."

"What else do you want to torture me with this evening?"

"Wow, and they say I'm the dramatic one," Stark carried a glass of whiskey as he sat on the couch next to her, with Clint on her other side.

"Nothing, I think that's enough to deal with today." For this, she was grateful. The others were quick to suggest movies they could watch and they eventually agreed on The Great Gatsby and ordering a pizza for dinner. She had been so caught up in the plot and analyzing F. Scott Fitzgerald's idea of the American Dream that she didn't realize as she ate two entire pieces of cheese pizza and a breadstick until the end of the movie, nearly an hour later when Clint squeezed her shoulder and told her how proud he was.

"What do you me-" she looked down at her plate and the panic began to rise in her stomach. She ran to the bathroom, quickly followed by all four boys, one of whom stuck a foot in the door frame to stop her from closing it. She fell to her knees anyway and began to put a finger down her throat, but her hand was caught by Dr. Banner.

"Stop! Let go!"

"No, Nat. You can't do that."

"I can't let it sit there," she cried, tears beginning to fall freely down her cheeks. She wriggled against his grasp and managed to kick him out from behind her, combat-style. He was soon replaced by the much larger and stronger Thor. "Please, let me go, I have to do this, please!" She cried and kept struggling against his strong embrace.

"Lady Natasha, please stop. Just breathe."

"I can't, I can't breathe. I can't. I need… I need, please. Clint, please," she made eye contact with him. Seeing his expression unchanging, she changed her approach. "Clint, you owe me this. After what you did, please. You did this to me and I have to get it out. Make him let me go." His face fell instantly and the other Avengers turned their heads in shock to look at him as he ran away swiftly. Thor's grip loosened ever so slightly, but he regained control mere milliseconds later as he realized what she was doing. She struggled for at least fifteen more minutes before going limp in his arms and crying onto his shoulder. She was no longer yelling, but pleading quietly with them to let her empty her stomach. Most of them had never seen her beg before, so the sight was quite stunning in all of the worst ways. Their hearts broke for her, but their resolve remained. Thor stroked her hair comfortingly and carried her up to his room to calm down.

"I better go check on…" Steve trailed off, still somewhat stunned by the scene that had unfolded.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll just clean up the living room. Let me know how he is, please."

As Steve emerged on Clint's floor, he heard nothing. He almost turned around, thinking that the archer may have gone to the range to free his emotions, but then he heard the unmistakable click of a lighter. After so many years in the army where many of his peers found their only solace in lighting up cigarettes and hoping to speed up their own deaths, he knew what one sounded like from a mile away. He rounded the corner to enter his room and saw Clint, shirt discarded, standing in front of the full length mirror in the corner of his room pressing a cigarette to his bare abdomen.

"Clint!" He was so startled that he dropped the cigarette on the floor, then quickly picked it up and extinguished it on the plate beneath the mirror. He crossed with arms across his stomach, hugging his sides and refusing to turn around.

"This isn't what it looks like," he begins.

"Really? Because it looks like you're burning yourself with cigarettes, but I'd be happy to hear what other explanation you can possibly come up with."

"Um," he pauses, trying to spin a convincing lie. He glances around the room looking for a shirt to throw on and cover himself, eventually finding a purple one on the opposite side of the bed. "Okay, so it is what it looks like. But it's not… It's not like hers. Just one a day, that's all. Just one. For what I did to her. One for every day. It's less than what I deserve."

"No, Clint." He sighs. "Is self-harm what Natasha deserves?"

"That's differe-"

"No. It's really not."

"She didn't do what she thinks she did. I did."

"Clint, as much as we hate to admit it, she has done bad things. She has killed people."

"But she was under the Red Room's control."

"And you were under Loki's."

"Listen, just. You can't tell her about this. Or anyone. Please, Steve. We have to focus on her, she deserves our help first. Or your help. I'm sure she probably doesn't want mine after what she said tonight."

"I won't tell her, because she has enough on her plate. But Clint, she didn't mean that. She wanted to hurt you so that we would let her hurt herself. She wants us to believe that she is what she believes. She wants us to think she's bad and deserves punishment, that we should allow her to do this to herself because she deserves it."

"But she doesn't."

"And neither do you." Clint is silent for a few moments so he continues. "But you have to tell the others."


	20. Chapter 20

They waited until Natasha finally cried herself to sleep in Thor's bed before calling the rest of the team back to the living room. Steve has tried his best not to show his emotions on his face, but the younger man was plainly stricken with insurmountable guilt and fear. He had thought it would be much longer than this before anyone else on the team picked up on his new habit and, even then, he had assumed Natasha would see the signs before the others. Now he was faced with a reality he had not considered - telling his teammates that in the midst of trying to help Natasha recover, he had developed a different form of what had gotten her in trouble in the first place. Tony has just finished cleaning the living room when Steve and Clint appeared. He began to ask how Clint was holding up before Steve raised a hand and told him to wait for the other Avengers to arrive. So he offered the men drinks and poured himself a scotch; Clint had been inclined to accept his offer, but somehow knew that Rogers wouldn't allow him the luxury of being any less than fully present for this discussion.

"Lady Natasha has fallen asleep in my room," Thor announced loudly, letting out a long sigh afterward. He was closely followed by Dr. Banner and, soon, the whole team, minus the sleeping Widow, was assembled in various forms in the living room, all looking a little worse for wear than they had in the previous weeks.

"I got the blade from her," Steve said, placing a small razor blade on the table.

"Did she tell you where she got it?"

"From my bathroom, they are replacements for my razor. That's not why I called you to the living room, though," he turns around to look at Clint, who was visibly squirming on the couch. Steve turns back to the team after giving Clint a classic Captain America raise of the eyebrow. He even briefly considered not telling them at all, given how much stress they had all been under because of Natasha's need for care, the team was exhausted, but Clint was more important than a few hours of sleep, anyway. "Clint, do you want to tell them?"

"Nope."

"Okay, I will. Clint has fallen into some of the same destructive patterns as Natasha - he has been burning himself purposefully with cigarettes."

"What the FUCK, Legolas?" Tony nearly spat his whiskey back out into the glass. "Did you not see how absolutely addicted she is and how much stress this is causing the whole team? What, did you think it would be a great idea to add to that? To make this worse? And god forbid we get called in, now we've got two of you to babysit."

"You don't have to babysit me, I can handle myself."

"Clearly, that's not the case," Tony stated, rolling his eyes. Thor sighed thoughtfully next to Tony, while Steve continued stealing glances at Clint out of the corner of his eye.

"Can I examine them?"

"That's not necessary."

"You are not even using a sterile object, there could be an infection. Please, just let me take a look," the doctor's tone was exhausted and pleading. The team had been through a lot in the past few days and he had never imagined that they would have figured it out so quickly. He had so many questions about how things would change because of this incident: would he be under surveillance like Natasha? Would they let him go on missions? Worse still, would they tell Natasha? This was not even a possibility he had begun to entertain or even consider. She could not handle the stress of his issues on top of trying to solve her own issues and surely the team would see this and not tell her. Clint did not have the history that Natasha did with injuring herself, so his mind could not consider that he could get around whatever precautions they put in place on him and he felt his only form of punishment slipping through his fingers. His voice was panicked and shaking when he finally spoke.

"Are you going to tell her?"

"Of course not," Steve said quickly. "She does not need this on top of everything else that she is going to have to deal with in the coming days."

"Unless," Tony began. "That's exactly what will make you stop this bullshit. Why did you choose to start it, after everything she's been through anyway?"

"One for every day she's dealt with the trauma I caused."

"Every day since New York? But you only found out a few days ago."

"I started a few days ago and made up for lost time. Listen, guys, this is different. She does not deserve the punishment she's giving herself, I do. I did terrible things to her."

"Whether or not we want to admit it, Lady Natasha has also done bad things. She has killed people and some of them were her age at the time. You were under my brother's control, as she was under their control. You are at no more fault than she."

"That's not true."

"Yes, dammit. It is. Neither of you did what you want to blame yourselves for."

"Even if I didn't, if I could absolve myself of that guilt. It's me she's afraid of and me that makes her flinch to be around. It's me that is a constant reminder of what she has been through and it's my face she sees when she screams in the middle of the night. You can't change that. None of us can."

"So what does burning yourself do to help her? To help any of us?"

"It helps me live with what I've done, Tony. You wouldn't understand."

"Oh really? Because I knew about her self-harm from the day you asked me to bring her pills to her at SHIELD. And she still ended up needing stitches because I didn't do enough - none of us are innocent in this, but causing more pain does not do anything but make things worse. Now, let Bruce check you out and if any of us EVER catches you doing this again, we will tell Natasha and SHIELD about your little habit before you can even do a damn thing about it."


	21. Chapter 21

After Bruce had spent what felt like hours poking and prodding at his ribs, Clint was released with strict orders and threats to never harm himself in any way again, or face the wrath of Tony, Natasha, and SHIELD. Unsurprisingly, he returned to his floor to find that everything was slightly out of place, his lighter and cigarettes had vanished, and there were no potentially harmful objects left in his quarters. He sighed and laid on his back, wishing for anything that would present itself as a solution or remove the heavy weight sitting on his chest, knowing that he had hurt his best friend and the woman he loved more than life itself. Of course he had known that burning himself wouldn't fix anything and would likely only make things worse in the end, but that was a risk he had been willing to take for the single second of relief that the hot ash brought him as he realized that for a split second, his mind was focused on the pain of the burn and not the crushing guilt of his actions. He briefly allowed his mind to wonder if this was how Natasha felt - after everything she had been through, she had found brief and fleeting reprieve in her habits and, although they were harmful, perhaps they stopped the thoughts and they had taken them away from her without a second thought. There were so many thoughts flooding his mind that he knew he was not going to sleep that night and instead ventured to the roof to contemplate the world from his favorite spot: his nest.

Meanwhile, Natasha was tossing and turning constantly in Thor's bed, getting no restful sleep. Her interactions in the hours before sleeping had brought a memory to the forefront of her brain and she was reliving it in her fitful dreams.

_ It was a few months, or maybe years, after she had begun her sexual training and only she and one classmate remained. Despite years of warnings not to become friends and the innate knowledge that only one of them could survive to be the widow of their class. They shared a few moments whenever they could, letting each other cry for a few moments, a forbidden activity by any of their superiors. It turned into a sort of routine between them and today was Natasha's turn to comfort the other girl. She hugged her closely, allowing their small frames to nearly bruise each other from pure force of bones crushing together with minimal cushion. _

_"What is this?" There was only one widow in the class above the two girls as the rest were on their missions and long-term assignments. She was not well-liked and rumor had it that she had been quite brutal and merciless when executing her classmates. The girls quickly separated and began attempting to explain their actions and pleading with the older girl not to turn them in. She simply smiled and walked away slowly. _

_"What are we going to do?" Natasha asked the other girl quietly, in a panicked whisper. _

_"We punish ourselves for it. Before they can. No eating, give yourself a few cuts, and maybe even offer yourself to one of them. Just for good measure. Tash, I know it's unpleasant and awful, but we have to do it. We still have weeks before one of us has to die, we have to make it until then."_

_"But we already ate today and they probably won't give us more for at least a few days. That won't show them anything."_

_"You have to get rid of it."_

_"Get rid of it?"_

_"Show them that we are disciplined and we do not even need the luxuries they give us. You have to throw up. Cut. Submit for extra training. Flirt. Anything. We have to fix this."_

_Natasha was more than confused about the logic - how would it make things better by making her own life worse? Wouldn't it be easier to just… give up? At least then, maybe the other young girl could live._

_"What if I just… tell them it was all my idea?"_

_"You'd be killed."_

_"Well… Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, you could live."_

_"You're the only good thing about this place - why would I want to live if you're not here anymore?"_

_"You know that we can't both make it out here…"_

_"We're supposed to have time! I need you!"_

_They were both openly crying now and they knew that every moment they were not caught was sheer luck at this point. If they did not stop soon, they would be found and they would both be killed; decisions had to be made and they had to be made quickly if even one of them wanted to survive beyond this particular day. _

_"Okay, so we'll both do our best. No more of this, we have to go show them what we can do and how much better we are, show them it was a fluke, one hard day and just one little mistake. It will be okay, it has to be."_

_They briefly touched their foreheads together, wiped each others eyes with their thumbs, then separated and went off in separate directions, Natasha toward her room and the other girl down a long, narrow hallway that led to the classrooms and training rooms. After she had ridded herself of the minimal food in her stomach, she began to cut her thighs with a small knife usually kept on her thigh in a small holster. Though her principal concern was ensuring that they both survived this stint, Natasha was secondarily concerned about the new lack of outlet they both faced. Of course, there really was no escape in the Red Room, but they had found solace in one another and the temporary relief that offered could not easily be replaced. She noticed quickly, though, that harming herself appeared to offer some reprieve. What was normally a painful punishment reserved for missteps and failures was acting as the same sort of escape from the hell she was living as crying with her classmate had._

_The relief was short-lived, as her door burst open seconds later and the knife fell to the ground with a loud clatter. Still bleeding, with a throat too raw to protest, she was dragged down a series of hallways she had not recalled seeing before and sat in a small room across from a woman she had never met before. The man who drug her here called the woman a name, an odd sign of respect for women here, but Natasha only heard the beginning - Vik - before she was hit over the head with a large metal pipe and passed out cold. When she woke, the woman was gonna and her classmate was sitting, chained to a chair across the room from Natasha. _

_"You've already killed her, now we're just going to finish with a bullet to the head."_

_"No," she cried. "We have more time, we don't know which of us is best yet."_

_"It's okay Nat," the girl rasped, clearly struggling to breathe. "I chose this."_

_"Your friend told us a very interesting story about how she was crying to and was so weak. Of course, we know you've done this too, but you never broke. We can't have pathetic, weak little girls who want to save their friends more than do their job." The voice was piped into the room and came from a female. Probably the one from earlier, Natasha thought to herself._

_"I won't do this to you," she whispered, refusing to pick up the gun._

_"They'll kill us both if you don't let me do this. I made this choice, this isn't yours. I'm sorry you're the one who has to do it, but it's not your fault. You have to keep fighting and get out, you deserve so much better than this. Someday, you'll be out. Just promise me you'll find my sister and tell her I love her. Please."_

_"I will," Natasha promised, as a tear slid down her cheek and she cocked the gun. "I'll find Megan and I'll tell her. I won't let her forget you, Sasha."_

_As her body slumped and fell out of the chair, Natasha was roughly pulled from the room again and thrown back into her own quarters. A man followed her and spit toward her face as she lay on the ground._

_"Get up, get on the bed."_

_She stumbled up from where she had fallen on the floor, weak from emotion, lack of food, and the blood loss visible on her floor. He handcuffed her to the bed roughly and gave a sickly smile before moving from the doorframe to reveal her first assailant of the night, who lifted her up like a rag doll above the bed, her arms still pulling behind her, and dislocated her shoulder before slamming her body back onto the bed roughly, knocking her unconscious once again. Natasha missed three days of classes and, by the time she returned, she was limping, covered in bruises, and could barely handle taking a few steps without screaming from the pain in her lower half. _


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Hello! Welcome to me trying to write my way through COVID-19, but also trying to pass 17 credit hours of now entirely online classes! I finally took a break tonight to a bit of writing for leisure. Thank you to the reviewers - especially the one who is checking every day. I've been there on stories, especially those that contained things I've struggled with.

TW for all the normal things plus attempted suicide (non-graphic)

The next morning was oddly calm in Avengers Tower and it was downright unsettling for a billionaire with more thoughts than he had dollars in his bank account. Steve was the Captain of the team for all intents and purposes, but Tony considered himself to be a sort of leader as well and this was a lot of problems that he did not know how to fix. In his lab and when they saved the world, things were easy: identify a problem, create a solution, and test the solution with moderate changes until it worked. Run it by Bruce for a final check, Pepper too, if it involved Stark Industries. Problem solved. But this was not his lab and it wasn't saving the world.

"Come back to bed, Tony," Pepper called from behind him as he sat at the window and pondered the situation.

"In a minute," he replied.

"You said that two hours ago," she swung her legs out form under the sheets and gently glided across the floor toward him. "I don't think you're going to be able to think your way to a solution on this. Natasha needs real help. And so does Clint. These are serious issues and you cannot deal with them on your own."

"That's not an option and you know it."

"Okay, so you spend a few days talking everything out as team, just like when Peggy died." She took a seat next to him and grabbed his hand into her own, rubbing circles on the tender skin between his thumb and pointer finger. There was a small scar there from one of the early versions of Rhodey's suit, when a sharp piece of metal had caught his hand and marred the flesh there. He had needed six stitches.

"You didn't see her, Pep. The look of betrayal when we took her blades from here. Clint's eyes when he found out what he had done under Loki's control. That…. I'm not sure they can be fixed."

"You never say that again," Pepper said, suddenly seriously. "You cannot let either of them think for even a second that there is not some kind of way to fix this."

"What is left to do? She won't eat, hardly sleeps, and can't go a few days without harming herself. He can't get rid of his guilt because he owes her a debt he can't repay…" he trailed off suddenly.

"What is it?"

"Unless he can. If he could help her, he could repay his debt. He could help here recover if we get them to start talking. She loves him."

"This isn't a fairytale, Tony. True love won't save her."

"No, but a good support system could. I need to do some research." He was suddenly darting around the room getting dressed. "JARVIS, wake Doctor Banner and get him to my lab. We've got work to do."

"What are you going to do?"

"If he can figure out how to control Hulk and I can figure out how to privatize world peace, we can sure as hell learn to create a support system for her. Can you look at options for bringing in a therapist that would be off SHIELD's radar?"

"Sure," she says, wrapping her robe around her body. "Tony?"

"Yeah?" He says, looking over his shoulder as he stands in front of the elevator.

"I love you."

"Of course you do. How could you not?"

On the floors above the lab, Natasha had returned to her floor and propped herself up in bed, knowing better than trying to workout or harm herself with some object in the tower. Her dreams left her restless and her forearms physically ached for a new cut as she stared straight ahead, considering her broken promise and all the other ways in which she had fucked up since joining the team when Clint asked. Clint. She longed for the days before New York, when she could melt in his arms as her head fit perfectly in the hollow of his shoulder and he played with her hair as she read to him in his bed. The days before the whole team knew her every weakness, before he knew what he had done and her weakness made him feel so guilty and broken, before she had been forced to eat, before her release had been taken away. Without her release, how was she meant to deal with these thoughts?

The rational part of her brain understood that she had choices. There were always choices - she could write, but if they found it like her journal which was missing, she would have no hope of staying on the team. She could normally work out, but there was the issue of JARVIS. She couldn't leave the tower for a walk to clear her head or to get some sunshine for the same reason. She couldn't play music loudly or they would think she was covering something up. She knew they had enabled JARVIS to track her vitals in every inch of her room, so there were no options to workout secretly or even just sleep, as the nightmares would spike her heart rate and cause a panic. The rational part of her brain could not come up with any options that wouldn't be thwarted by the team's foolish attempts to help her. They couldn't help her, no one could. Why couldn't they see how fucked up she was? How much she had done that made her undeserving of their friendship and of Clint's love? He probably enjoyed the sex and that was enough for him, she thought bitterly. That was all she was good for anyway: being a slut, a whore, a cum dumpster, a vessel of gaining useful information. That's why they asked her about her memories - not because they cared, but because they needed information about the Winter Soldier.

They weren't her friends. Natalia Romanov had no friends. Her mission was to gain information and be an elite spy. She had failed her mission, so there was no point in continuing her miserable existence.

She didn't know when she had gotten up. Or how the pills got in her hands. She remembered briefly wondering how they had missed the prescription pain killers, but maybe they thought she still needed them. She had never taken a single one, just combined them in one bottle and let them rot on her shelf. Widows are too resilient for pain killers, they don't need such things that help weak people. She counted them carefully and assumed 40 would be enough given her weight, if Bruce had been right about it. She filled a glass with water and moved to her desk, pulling out a single blank sheet of paper and a dark black pen. She took another pill each time she wrote a sentence and felt herself getting dizzy as wetness dripped from her eyes to the page in front of her. It wasn't long, but it was what she needed to say.

Clint,

I'm sorry. This was not your fault. You meant everything to me and I wouldn't have made it this far without you, but I failed my mission by accepting your help that day and I've been paying for it ever since. There's not enough good in me to wipe out all the red in my ledger. Don't think about what you could have done - you couldn't save me. No one can. You deserve all the love in the world.

Please do one last thing for me: find Megan Bryant, that's her WPP name, and tell her that her sister loved her so much and died wanting her to know that. Sasha loved her so much and I loved Sasha.

Nat

She set the pen down and wobbled her way back to her bed, laying her head down and falling into a peaceful blackness. Finally.


	23. Chapter 23

"Miss Romanoff's heart rate has dropped below an acceptable normal range for her regular vital statistics. I suggest you attend to this matter quickly." JARVIS's voice rang throughout the tower, alerting those present in the tower to her current conditions.

Clint immediately snapped out of his trance and noticed that he was perched dangerously close to the edge of the roof, a matter he would deal with later. He ran down the several flights of stairs to her floor in the tower and say Tony and Bruce running toward her room from the elevator with the same sense of urgency.

"Where are Thor and Cap?"

"Here, Stark," Steve replied from behind him. "Thor went back to Asgard this morning, something to do with his brother's punishment."

"The med bay we're building isn't done yet if her heart is already affected by the malnourishment…" Dr. Banner said hesitantly.

"JARVIS, what happened? Scan the last hour of video footage." Tony instructed as they entered the room.

"She's breathing, but it's unsteady. We need to get her down there and figure out what's going on…"

"She looks peaceful, like she's sleeping. It doesn't look like she's bleeding," Steve adds.

"If the anorexia is impacting her heart," Bruce began to argue. "It wouldn't be evident from the out-"

"She tried to kill herself."

Everyone whipped around to see Clint, tears already streaming down his face, holding a handwritten note with shaky lettering.

"Let me see that!"

"We can read later, Tony! We need to SAVE her first!"

"JARVIS, update?"

"Miss Romanoff ingested 40 painkillers approximately two hours ago. Suggested medical steps are: pump the stomach with activated charcoal, force removal of the pills through induced vomiting, and perform life-saving measures such as CPR as necessary if she ceases breathing."

"Oh my god, if she…"

"Get out of the way, Steve take her to the medical floor. Subfloor 3. It's a bit messy, but take her. I'll meet you there."

"Maybe it's time to involve SHIELD." Tony admitted.

"After everything we planned this morning? She would try again. And their useless medics don't know as much as we do about her tendencies. She'd probably succeed there. It's not an option, Tony. Let's go save her."

"Again." Tony adds faintly.

—

It's hours of frantic care, with brief moments of stability before she crashes again, but finally around 6 PM, she appears to be in stable condition and sleeping. Bruce excuses himself to the Hulk Out room to let out his pent up aggression and Tony stays by her side with Clint, who hasn't stopped a steady stream of tears in the hours since her attempt. He has the letter she's written clutched to his chest and he's already located Megan, who has been going to college at USC and staying under the radar as an animal science major with a minor in pathology of infectious diseases in horses. Tony had tried to take the note from him a few times, but his grip remained and never wavered.

"It didn't seem very well thought-out." He says carefully. "The letter was short. It didn't say much. She's wordier when she thinks about things for a long time."

"Yeah, you two seem to have the impulsivity in common, that's for sure."

Her eyes were flittering open and Clint quickly glared at him before rushing closer to her side.

"Nat," he says quietly.

"Bruce said she'd be groggy for awhile, don't expect much."

"I'm…" she stutters. "Why am I not dead?"

"We saved you," Tony says carefully. "Again."

"Why?"

"Because you deserve all the love in this world, too."

"No, you don't understand." She coughs loudly, almost choking on her words as she spoke them. "You don't" cough. "Know what I've done." More violent coughing.

When the cough subsides and she pushes herself up in the hospital bed, she briefly looks around the room, noticing all the wires attached to her arms, chest, and the tube in her nose passing food to her. "I don't deserve food. I don't deserve to LIVE, Clint. Please. Please let me die. You can move on without me being hurt by what happened."

"I don't want to move on," he cries softly. "Not without you. I want to get past it with you. I want to make it better."

"I'm tired," she sighs, slumping against the back of the bed and closing her eyes. She keeps them shut tightly as the tears slip out. "I'm tired of always fighting this by myself. I'm tired of fighting. I'm so tired. Just let me sleep and not wake up. I'm so tired. I can't do it anymore."

"You don't have too, Red. You don't have to."

"You don't have to carry this all by yourself, Nat. And neither do I. We can get through this together, but I need you here for that."

"I can't do it. I've tried and I can't, nothing works."

"But you've only tried alone."

"I'm always alone, Stark." She says sarcastically, opening her eyes to glare at him. "You don't know what it's like and you never will."

"But I can. If you tell me. We can all help you, if you let us."

"You weren't there, you didn't know what it was like. You could never know."

"If that's what it will take to help you, we'll experience it all. You don't have to bear it alone," Steve tells her as he walks into room.

"You can't scare us off now, Nat," Bruce walks in behind Steve, no sign of the other guy apparent. "We're ready for anything."

"It's not pretty," she says slowly after a few minutes of heavy silence.

"Neither was Afghanistan."

"Or World War II."

"Or Loki's mind control."

"Or Gamma radiation."

"We got through all of that with help. From each other. And I'd be willing to bet it's not going to be as hard to hear as almost losing you every few days has been."

"It still might not work. Nothing ever has before."

"Frankly, I don't give a shit." Clint says. "We are going to keep saving you because you are worth saving, Natasha Romanoff. You deserve to be in this world. You did not deserve the things that have happened to you and nothing will ever change that. I desperately wish we could go back and fix it all for you, but we can't. So this is the next best thing. I think I speak for the rest of the team when I say I'd rather be uncomfortable than pump your stomach or stitch up your arms every few days. I would go to the ends of the Earth to save you and, if I can't, I'll follow you down. Do you understand me? I am NOT losing you."

She takes a deep breath. "Okay, we'll have to start from the beginning."


	24. Chapter 24

"My file says there was a fire. That they scouted me for a 'ballet program.'" She scoffs as she says it. "I don't have any memories of my life before. Maybe some… flashes. But I don't know if they're real or made up. When we were young, they told us it was an orphanage for kids whose parents didn't want them so we would make up stories about what they were like and how they would shower us in presents for birthdays, clap as we did our first pirouettes, and hug us all the time. When we were five, we started training. It was just basic survival skills, that's what they told us. That was the worst year because we weren't performing yet, so they hit us a lot." The men exchanged a few worried glances and they pulled chairs around her bed. Clint grabbed her hand and gave her a firm squeeze of reassurance. "Then just before I was seven, they told me about a man. I remember it so vividly. They said this man had set fire to my house and killed my parents, which is why I was there. I was a pretty angry kid at that point and I was protective of all the younger kids. They told me that he was planning to burn down a few more houses, but that I could stop him and save those kids from having to come here and becoming a bad kid that they had to beat to make them behave well." Her words faltered a bit.

"They told you that you were bad kids for losing your parents?"

"Well, they said we let them die. That we were bad because we didn't save them…"

"You were three! You couldn't save them!" Steve cried in outrage.

"I can stop…" she said guiltily. "I know it's difficult to hear, I don't mean to be a burden."

"Steve, imagine how hard it must have been to live that. You can sit here and just hear about it. Continue, Nat."

"Um, alright… Well, I wanted to make sure those kids could save their parents, so I spent three days learning how to draw him away from a crowd and kill him by tying his own necktie around his neck so tight that he couldn't breathe. They gave me a gun, a little one that was easy to operate, for emergencies. He had a friend with him who wouldn't leave him alone, so I lured them both away and when they tried to take me, I shot them both. They didn't let me eat for three days after that because I made too many waves and raised suspicions."

The silence in the room was heavy as they processed the information they had just heard. Clint was beginning to understand what exactly he had saved her from, although he had always known that things were.. bad.

"Well, we know what happened when you were ten, so what happened from seven until then?"

"Those years were pretty easy, really. After we started going on missions, they started the eliminations. A few girls each year would fight with each other until one of them died. There can only be one Widow from each class. The first year of eliminations was the hardest because we had foolishly made friendships. We talked about our parents and played games in the dark and tended to each other's wounds. After we started killing each other and exploiting weaknesses we had shared in confidence, nobody talked much. We went to school every day, went to ballet practice, and had physical training. We went on missions every few weeks, always alone with close monitoring. The only punishment they had then was beatings, extra conditioning, and starvation or not giving us water. We never thought that we would long for those days." Her voice almost sounded wistful as she said this, but her body told a different story. Somewhere in the middle of telling the story, he hand had found its way to her stomach and she was picking at the scabbed over cuts with the hand Clint was not holding.

"Natasha," Tony said cautiously. Her whole body flinched involuntarily as she was pulled from the memory and back into the moment. "You're picking at your cuts and they might reopen. You can't lose blood right now."

"Oh, it's fine." She says. "I do this all the time, it just helps me stay focused when I'm having a hard time with a memory of thought."

"It's not okay," Bruce interjected. "Tony is right, you could reopen a wound and you can't afford to lose blood right now. We've been doing some research and working to find some safer alternatives for you. I think, since you're already talking to us, writing would not help. But, if I get you a rubber band that you could snap against your wrist and cause a little bit of temporary pain, would that help?"

"A blade would be better," she said snarkily, her eyes not leaving the white blanket draped over her legs.

"Okay, so that's not going to happen." Tony reiterates. "Here, why don't you try the rubber band?"

She hesitantly takes the band and places it around her wrist. The way that it hangs loosely against the small bone of her arm is not lost on any of these men. She pulls it back as far as it will stretch, ready to release it when Steve interjects.

"How is this helpful? She's still hurting herself and you're letting her!"

"This is temporary pain and causes no immediate physical threat to Natasha. It is a much safer alternative than her cuts or burns."

"Nat, maybe you could start with a smaller snap."

"Even this one won't hurt enough. Please, just let me do what I need to do. I'm trying your idea instead of trying to find something to cut myself with, can't we count that as a win or are you still not happy with me?"

"You're right," Clint concedes. "I'm sorry. I'm glad you are trying something less harmful than your usual methods of choice."

The snap of the rubber against her wrist is deafening for the people surrounding her and Steve physically flinches away from the motion. A small smile spreads across Natasha's face as the pain reaches her brain from her nervous system, a welcome relief from what felt like weeks of being unable to relieve her urge to dig a blade into her skin. She continues to snap the band against her wrist as she begins talking once more.

"Anyway, you know what starts happening after that. I was having intercourse with men by my eleventh birthday. It wasn't exactly the best birthday present, but most of the first few men who fucked me were at least gentle when they made love."

"I would hardly call that making love, Red," Stark scoffed.

She paused as the room filled with a pregnant pause. "What do you mean? They were gentle. Some of the later stuff was kinkier, but this was… pretty fine."

"Did you want to have sex with them?"

"I mean, I don't know? I don't remember if I did."

"Did you know that in most countries, children under the age of 16 cannot legally give consent to sexual activities?"

"Okay, but this was a bit of a special circumstance, I don't understand what you're trying to say, Stark." The panic was rising in her throat and she could hear the monitor beside her beeping more rapidly as her heart rate increased. She snapped the rubber band more quickly now, not pulling it back as far, but not allowing any resting time between snaps that was afforded by the larger distance between the band being pulled further back.

"You don't think that was actually sex, right Romanoff?"

"What else would it be?"

"Rape, Red. It was rape." Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap.

"It wasn't," snap, snap. "I'm not some" snap, snap, snap "little victim" snap snap snap "that couldn't handle herself" snap, snap, snap, snap. "I could have stopped it, I didn't." Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. "That means I must have wanted it. I let it keep happening." She pulls the rubber band back too far this time and it breaks, but she needs the pain. Her hands dart to her stomach before anyone can catch her and she begins ripping at her stomach, tearing open old wounds and letting blood start to trickle. Her wrist is swollen and red from the snaps she had inflicted while talking and, even as Clint tries to pull her hands away, she continues scratching. Bruce has to push a sedative through her IV to get her to calm down and her eyes flutter shut once again as she slumps back against the bed.

"Nice going, Stark," Steve comments.

"What? You want her to keep believing that THAT," he spits, "was sex? It's disgusting. They brainwashed her into believing she wants it. I mean, I know I thought she was a slut for having sex so young, but after all the research we've done… It's not the same. She needs to know that."

"Yes," Bruce says. "But she needs to get adjusted to it. Clearly that's a trigger point for her. We need to figure out why the idea of it being rape is so uncomfortable for her and work on fixing it before we label it that and shove the label down her throat."

"We can try again in the morning," Steve points at the clock, which shows that it's nearly 10 PM. "I'll watch over her tonight while you all get some sleep."

None of them wanted to leave the room, especially Clint. But one by one, their fatigue won them over with a promise of rest and the knowledge that Steve would ensure Natasha's wellbeing with the medical guidance of JARVIS available if necessary.


	25. Chapter 25

In the morning, Natasha didn't feel much like talking. It had been weeks, maybe longer, since she had uninterrupted sleep that wasn't plagued with nightmares and she didn't want to ruin it by talking about her past. The team, however, felt that it was important to get her talking as soon as possible. Before they had come back the lab, they had searched Clint for any new signs of harm. It was uncomfortable, but they made him strip and be looked over, learning from their mistakes with Natasha.

"I haven't had the chance to even think about that," he told them as he took his shirt off.

"Better safe than to have two of you in the sorry excuse for an infirmary downstairs. And don't think saying that makes me believe for a second that you don't still want to do it." Tony chastises him while scanning every inch of flesh. He notices a rubber band on the archer's wrist, but doesn't comment. No new burns was enough for now, they needed to focus on Natasha's recovery. Clint would sort himself out when she gets better and he realizes that it isn't his fault.

"Okay, Tony. No talking about... you know what today."

"You can say 'rape,' Cap. It's not a bad word."

"It's an unspeakable act. I'd rather not."

They were slow to walk into the room so they wouldn't startle her, but she still flinched as they entered her peripheral vision. She looked worlds better than she had in the days before: her skin no longer held a grey tint, the bags under her eyes were markedly less pronounced, and she seemed to be much less reserved, even saying a quick greeting as they came into the room.

"So, when can I get out of here?" She asked, angling her head toward Bruce, who sighed and flipped through some papers on a clipboard at the end of her plastic bed.

"It would be best if you would stay for at least a week to remove the dangers of malnourishment..."

"I am NOT staying in here for a week!"

"I figured as much," he replied. "Which is why I've written a sort of 'outpatient' schedule. If you agree to it and not leaving the compound, you can roam as long as you leave the NG tube in your nose and wheel a banana bag with you to make sure you are meeting you caloric needs."

She did not like this, but there was nothing she could do about it. "What is the schedule?"

"You'll have to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night. For the first few nights, I can give you a sedative to help you, but I don't want to overuse those. In addition to that, you'll have to eat meals with the team as we slowly wean you back into a normal diet, and you'll need to meet with us twice a day, as well as have a daily weigh in. You do have a bit of choice here, though. You can choose what you start to eat during each meal, you can help us write the menu, and you can choose what we do during one of the team meetings each day."

"What about training?"

"We can talk about reintroduc-"

Clint interrupted Bruce as he saw a small grin etch its way onto Natasha's beautiful face. In this moment, he noticed how her cheeks looked like they had caved in and her jawline could cut glass. "Sorry to interrupt you here, Doc, but this is important. What kind of training are you asking about?"

"Um. My normal training," she faltered.

"We can talk about reintroducing a normal amount of physical activity, 30 minutes a day at first, after your weight is back in the acceptable range. At least 100 pounds. And even then, sparring, target practice, and maybe a bit of cardio. Nothing more."

"That's not fair! If I don't train, I won't be useful to the team - I'll be deadweight."

"That's a separate conversation," Steve pipes in.

"What do you mean? Am I off the team?"

"For the time being, you and Clint are both benched."

"What? Why is Clint benched? You don't need to punish him for what Loki made him do, that's insane! It wasn't his choice and it wasn't his fault that I couldn't fight him off. If anything, you should keep me off the team longer until I can do better in simple fights like that. Clint deserves his spot."

"This isn't up for debate," he affirms, arms crossed over his chest at the end of her bed. The stance indicates that he has no intention of listening to anything she says and it almost seems vaguely threatening. Maybe she should not have questioned his orders. He is her superior, after all.

"I'm sorry," she mutters under her breath, eyes darting around the room. She wants to punish herself for stepping out of line and questioning a man who holds power over her before they decide how best to punish her instead, but her options are limited with all of them watching her. They shift uneasily around her and share glances between themselves before arguing bursts out as Clint speaks to them.

"I understand that what I did was unforgivable, but why am I being kept off the team if you all think it wasn't my fault?"

"Do you really want to discuss this here?"

With the rest of the team distracted, she begins to quietly dig her fingernails into the soft flesh of her wrist. It is still sore from the rubber band snapping of the previous night, and she can feel the veins moving underneath the scraping motion and briefly considers what it would look and feel like if she could just puncture one… No, that's not the point and that would be too suspicious, anyway. She realizes from the faint copper scent that she has broken skin, but the men around her are none the wiser as they continue arguing. As she continues to claw at her skin silently, relishing in the pain, she pulls her mind out of her disassociated state and listens to the conversation, distinguishing voices without taking her eyes off her wrist.

"-to say that you don't use something from a mission as another reason?" Tony.

"Because I won't!" Clint.

"And why would we believe that? Clearly this is addictive!" Steve.

"It's not the same and you know it."

"Maybe we should ask what she thinks about it, hm? I bet she might have an opinion." Tony.

"She has enough on her plate already."

"She," Natasha speaks, without looking up. "Is right here. What's going on?"

"Nothing," her partner says quickly.

"How addictive would you say your little self-harm habit is, Natasha?" Tony's voice is bitter, like the day he found out. She pulls her knees to her chest, instinctively at his harsh words.

"I don't see what that has to do with anything." Her tone was defensive in response to his hostility.

"Can we please consider how this would impact her recovery and get back to focusing on that?"

"If this is going to impact me, don't I have a right to know?" They kept looking at each other, not acknowledging what she had said. It was driving her crazy. "Clint?"

"Nat…" he sighs. "Please just know it wasn't about you, it wasn't because of you, and it wasn't your fault."

"What wasn't my fault? What happened? Did I hurt you?"

"No, nothing like that." He swallows hard, and she watches his Adam's apple swell in his throat. He wrung his hands and looked at the ground, something she had seen frequently after a mission when he thought he had made a mistake.

"Clint, tell me what's going on. I'm kind of freaking out here."

His hands found the hem of his sleeveless shirt and, before his nerves could stop him, he pulled the shirt off and moved toward her in one swift motion. Steve grimaced as he saw them again and she ran her fingers over each perfect circle delicately.

"Tash, your arm…" he said quietly, as a tear slipped down his cheek.

"My arm? What about your chest?"

"I guess we both fucked up this time," he gave her a half-smile as he spoke. "A long way from trying to kill each other in Budapest, huh?"


	26. Chapter 26

After Clint put his shirt back on, Natasha had lifted the edge of her blanket and mentioned for him to scrawl in next to her. A few of her team members looked shocked and her fingers shook as she did it. She still couldn't quite look him the eyes and not feel terror run down her spine about the power he could hold over her if he tried again. But deeper and more powerful than that was her instinct to comfort her teammate, to make things right for him, if she couldn't do it for herself; nothing he had done would ever deserve the pain he was inflicting on himself and she knew that because only she deserved it and she had done worse. Much worse.

"Why?" She asked softly.

"After I found out about New York…" he sighed, laying on his back and staring at the ceiling. "I think I understood how you felt. It hadn't made sense before - why you would believe something was so bad, so terrible a thing that you did, and to believe so deeply that you deserved to pay for it as to hurt yourself for it. Like that would fix what you had done, if you could just punish yourself enough, enough to wipe out all the bad you had done. So I figured… One for every day. It didn't feel like enough, but I just thought that if I could give myself even part of what I caused you for every day you had to live with it. It's not the same and it isn't enough to makeup for what I did, but… it helped."

"But it won't make up for it."

"I know," he said sadly. "Nothing I can ever do will make up-"

"You didn't let me finish," he was silent as she continued. "Nothing will make up for it because you don't need to make up for it. It might take awhile to… get back to where we were. I can't promise I won't be… scared sometimes. But it wasn't YOU that did those things. It was your body, but it wasn't you. You are the man who pulls me out of bed at 4 AM to go to Waffle House because you can't wait until breakfast for good coffee. You are the person who would jump off a building, literally, to save his teammates. You are the man who hides in the vents and plays pranks on his teammates just to bring some joy out of a rough day. You are the friend who would drive across town just to find a 100 Grand bar when I'm PMS-ing. That's who you are, Clint Barton. Not what he made you do."

"But what I did to you… It's unforgivable."

"Even if it was your fault, and it isn't, I don't judge people on their worst mistakes."

"Maybe you should."

"You didn't." They share a meaningful glance at each other as Natasha wraps her hand around his in the plastic hospital bed. "You are the one who saved a scared, murderous 16 year old from some of the worst years of her life. You are not a bad person because of what you have done. If we wrote out all of the good things you have done and all of the bad, you have more than wiped the red out of your ledger, Clint. You probably saved more lives than we can count just by bringing me to SHIELD. If you stop now, before it becomes a habit, it will be easier for you. Promise me you won't hurt yourself anymore."

"Can you promise me the same?"

"Clint…"

"Nat"

"It's not that simple for me. It's been years. Not days."

"You don't have anything anyway, what's the harm in trying?"

"But what am I supposed to do now if I can't workout, I have to eat, I can't leave, I can't really be on the team, and I can't hurt myself? What's left?"

"You can talk to us, Red. That's the point of the sessions with the team."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Then we'll try something else. Something that isn't harmful. Speaking of which," Bruce lifts his eyebrow. "I need to see your wrist."

She reluctantly extends her left arm toward him in a very jerky motion. The blood has mostly dried to her arm at this point, but the scratches and half-moon shapes from her nails are not fading quickly.

"When Bruce finishes checking you out, we'll have breakfast upstairs. Clint," Steve motions for the archer to go upstairs with him and Tony. "Let's get started on something light. Eggs, toast, and fruit maybe. We'll have breakfast and then get back to talking in your first session."

Dr. Banner is efficient when he is acting as like her doctor, making quick work of cleaning off the dried blood with an antiseptic wipe, spreading an antibiotic cream over the area, and covering it with clean wrappings, all without saying a word.

"Bruce?" She asks hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For taking care of me. I've never," she let out a ragged breath. "Nobody has ever really done all this and not… called me stupid or threatened me."

"Natasha, look at me." He lifted her chin to meet her eyes with his. "I will never, ever threaten you or ridicule you for struggling. You have been through so much and you are one of the strongest people I know, but even strong people break sometimes. This," he motions to her scarred and broken body. "Does not make you any less worthy of quality care or help. The only regret I have is that we weren't able to help you sooner and that you spent so much time suffering alone when we could have helped you."

"You guys will figure it out soon." She said, dejectedly, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. "You can't help me. They made sure of that, there's too much damage."

"That's not true. But I know you don't believe that right now, so I'll have to believe it enough for both of us." She looks around the hospital area as Bruce puts away his medical supplies. A quick scan reveals that almost all of the cabinets have some kind of lock on them, so she won't be able to access anything she could use to harm herself. Bruce notices her looking after a few moments and gives her a pointed look, so she has to think of a quick cover. She averts her eyes, like she was embarrassed.

"Um…" she says carefully. "Is there… another rubber band lying around here somewhere…"

To her relief, Bruce almost seems proud of her for asking and he pulls one out of a drawer next to him.

"Try to only use it when you really need it, Nat."

They head toward the elevator together, Natasha wheeling her IV pole with her as they walked. Her mind was whirling with the possibilities that laid in front of her and she could hardly bear the thought of telling the team even more about her time in the Red Room. After she turned eleven until Clint rescued her, things were much worse than most people would be able to imagine and some of it she didn't even remember because of the drugs they forced into her system. She shuddered at the thought of having to explain to Clint who Megan was and why, exactly, it was her dying wish that she knew her sister loved her so much. She would have to tell them that she was responsible for Sasha's death, and the thought of that was enough to make her want to give in all over again. The elevator chime drew her out of her trance and she offered a weak smile to Clint, who led her to a seat at the kitchen table. The plate at her seat was filled with eggs, two slices of toast, and grapes.

"You only need to choose one thing to finish today," Bruce said reassuringly next to her. Again, she forced a small smile and began to pick up one of the grapes off the plate in front of her. As she bit into it, she was alarmed at the foreign texture of food on her tongue. The juices of the fruit exploded into her mouth and she gagged involuntarily, spitting half the grape back onto the plate.

"That's disgusting," she made a face at the team. "Can I please do something different?"

They all stifled a laugh at the face she made and let her choose another item. This time, she selected the toast. It scratched her throat as she swallowed it, but taking sips of water made the texture minimally bearable. She chewed each bite exactly 11 times, making the consistency almost like oatmeal before it slid down to her stomach. If she had to eat, she would be sure she was eating as little as possible, chewing it well, and making them think she was constantly eating. Bruce was frowning when she announced that she was done after eating approximately half of a triangle of toast and the rest of the team exchanged worried glances, but brushed it off as the first day. They had scheduled an end of day meeting each day to discuss her progress, they could talk about it there where she wouldn't be able to deceive them or brush off their concerns.

"Okay," Bruce said. "Let's head to the living room to talk, then."


	27. Chapter 27

She knew that resistance would get her nowhere and opted to walk as slowly as possible, with Clint at her side the entire time. She sat next to him on the couch and he fingerspelled quiet reassurances into her hand. It was a habit they picked up a few years earlier, when they were on missions with others and wanted to communicate privately. Clint knew some Russian, she knew some sign, and they had some signals they had made up in a language of their own. It was quicker to use their arms than to explain that Tony and Bruce had created yet another experiment gone wrong.

"Natasha?" Bruce says clinically, pulling out a small clipboard and relaxing against Tony on the loveseat. Natasha had some suspicions about their relationship early on but quickly learned that it was platonic and Tony's playboy, seemingly bisexual persona was a front to cover a quiet life with Pepper. Their relationship was the sweetest part about living in the tower, though neither lost their sass or ability to be sarcastic with the other. She often found herself hoping that one day she could have the same idealistic peacefulness with Clint before her brain reminded her that it would simply never be possible for someone like her. "I know we already know some things about your time in the Red Room, but I would really like these discussions to be largely led by you. Where would you like to start?"

She bit back the urge to shut down and reiterate that she had no desire to start at all.

"I don't know what you want to know, why don't we start there?"

"No," Clint calmly replied. "You are using that to find a way around telling us everything. If we tell her what we want to know, she'll avoid telling us anything we don't specifically ask about and we don't know enough to ask about everything we should know."

"There's just a lot!" She exclaimed. "I don't know where to start because I don't know what's important."

"It's all important, Red."

"What's most important for you to know? We can start there." The team gave brief glances across the room to Clint, who nodded slightly that they could proceed.

"Are there any other means than your eating disorder and cutting that you use to hurt yourself?"

"I don't have an eating disorder, Bruce," she growled, snapping the rubber band against her unmarked wrist. "I am not some teenage girl skipping meals because daddy didn't buy her the newest iPhone. It's part of my training."

"Actually," Dr. Banner's medical background took a front seat to the conversation at this time. "While eating disorders are most prevalent in teenage girls, they do affect both men and pre- and post-adolescent women. They are almost most commonly caused by some form of trauma with an underlying goal of control, not attention-seeking."

"Whatever," she spat angrily. "I don't have one of those. I haven't been traumatized."

"Okay," he sighs. "Are there any other means you've used to hurt yourself other than cutting and your… training?"

"Currently? No."

"And previously?"

"I've burned myself," Clint shifts uncomfortably next to her. "Taken hits I probably could have avoided. Gotten a little too drunk and gone out to do reckless things. Gotten high for the same reasons. That one was rare, only when I could find out when SHIELD's random drug tests would make their way to Clint and I. Or right after we had just had one. Or when I tried to get myself kicked out. I've also-"

"Hold on," Steve pipes in. "We aren't gonna move past that like you didn't just say that. What do you mean, you tried to get yourself kicked out?"

"You know, of SHIELD," she says nonchalantly.

"Why did you try to get kicked out of SHIELD?"

"Simple. I didn't deserve to be there."

"Of course you deserve to be there, Tash. You have more than proven that since I brought you in."

"What did they say, when you brought me in?" Clint hesitated at her question. "I'll tell you what my file says. 'Flight risk. Natasha poses a serious threat to the members of this organization and should not be trusted on her own. She will need constant monitoring and must not be given full privileges or access until proven she can be trusted.'" The recitation was so perfect no one dared to question the validity of her statements.

"That was years ago," Clint says.

"I bet that no one in this room except you fully trusts me today. Hell, I bet you don't even trust me."

"That is not true."

"Okay, then let me have five minutes in my room without JARVIS enabled."

"Absolutely not," Tony interjected quickly.

"Exactly."

"That is not the same thing and you know it is not fair to compare them."

"Sure it is. It's simple, black and white, really. Either you trust me or you don't, and you don't. Nothing has changed and why should it? I don't belong here, I don't deserve to be here. I'm no hero."

"And we are?"

"Of course yo-"

"No, let me finish, Red," Tony says impatiently. "Do you know the atrocities that Stark Industries is responsible for? Do you know how many people I have hurt and killed? How many people we have failed to save? We. Not you. All of us."

"People died before I went into the ice, too. And people have died trying to recreate the solution that made me into the 'hero' you think I am."

"Hulk has killed more people thank I can keep track of in my lifetime."

"You know I'm not innocent."

"So it would seem," Tony paces around the room. "We aren't all innocent and heroic. We have all done things that have killed people, hurt people, and we will never get past that. So that's not good enough for me, Red. That's not a good enough reason for me to believe you think you don't belong here because you're not an idiot. If you were, I wouldn't have hired Natalie to work for me. So, what's the real reason here? Why do you think you don't deserve everything the rest of us do?"

Natasha had visibly shrunk back into the couch, putting as much physical distance between herself and Tony as possible. Before all of this began to spiral out of control, she had once thought he was an arrogant asshole who just didn't know when to quit. But now, as she wracked her brain for any plausible reason they would believe now that her first decoy had failed, she realized that he was incredibly observant and had likely done a lot of research on both her and people similar to her, if any were left in the world.

"Uh," she stuttered as they stared at her expectantly.

"Still looking for some excuse?" He grinned lightly at her, causing her breath to quicken ever so slightly in fear. "I'll tell you what I think. I believe that part of it is that you think you deserve every bad thing you do to yourself. But I think that would have been enough and you would have felt okay about being here and just punishing yourself if that was it. But it isn't, is it? I think that part of why you got so scared when I said what I did last night because you know what happened wasn't normal. Maybe not consciously, you probably think you deserve it so it isn't the same, right?"

"Stop," she says quietly, aggressively snapping the band and hoping to break the skin on her other wrist.

"Barton, hold her arms."

"I think," Natasha looks up at him, scared, as Clint holds her hands apart gently. "That they've got it programmed into you that you don't deserve all of this because you are dirty and damaged because of what they did."

She sobs loudly and goes limp on the couch, her whole body shaking as she falls onto Clint's chest.

"I don't," she cries. "I'm too damaged to be here. You are all," she stutters. "Normal, you aren't damaged goods. You deserve to be the heroes."


	28. Chapter 28

"That's not true," he says quietly from her behind her, still holding her wrists and gently rubbing them where she was snapping the rubber band. "You are not at fault for what happened to you. It does not make you dirty or damaged or any less worthy of all the love, respect, and friendship we can give you. The people that don't deserve any of that are the people who did this to you."

"It wasn't their fault, though. They did it because of the Red Room," she sputtered out between coughs.

"Natasha," Bruce says calmly. "If you are saying it wasn't their faults that they assaulted and tortured you, how would it be your fault that you were assaulted and tortured?"

"Those are people's urges and they shouldn't be faulted for being violent or wanting sex. But they do those things to people who are bad, do bad things, and deserve the violence and the sex."

"Natasha, what's the point of sex?"

"To satisfy the other person. To do something good to help make up for a bad."

"Is Pepper a bad person?" Tony pipes in.

"Of course not."

"I have sex with her. And she didn't do anything she needs to make up for."

"Well…" she stumbled over her words. "Pepper didn't kill her parents or anyone after that, so she is one of the people who deserves to use people like me for pleasure."

"So should I be… used in that way for killing people in World War II? Or in New York?"

"Of course not."

"So what is the difference?"

"I…" She shifted uncomfortably and pulled her arms from where Clint was still holding them. There was a subtle feeling under her skin she could not ignore that was begging her to cut. It was like there was something just under the surface of the delicate skin of her forearm pulling at every cell in her body and sending signals to her brain that she needed to cut. She opted to use her nails to scratch at the skin, hoping that it would afford some relief from the gnawing feeling. Instead, she found that it made the urge stronger and supplanted it from just her arm to a panic that was rising through her chest like a hot air balloon. This was more than wanting to punish herself or regulate her emotions. Her body physically needed a cut and she had never felt the urge this strongly before in all of her years, but she had also never even gone this long without any form of harm.

As if on some miraculous cue, JARVIS announced that Nick Fury was in the elevator and headed up with a mission assignment. The panic in her throat worsened as she realized that her bandaged arms were on full display, but Tony quickly pulled a blanket from underneath the couch and threw it at her, which Clint haphazardly arranged over her.

"You're sick," Steve said to her, leaving no room for discussion or argument.

"Oh, good. You're all here." Fury said as he glided into the room, followed by Maria Hill. "We have an assignment for you, a lead from Viktoriya."

"What kind of lead?" She sat up quickly but was careful not to lose the blanket wrapped around her.

"You," Steve said, giving her a daring look. "Need to rest. This doesn't concern you."

"Romanoff is on this mission, Cap."

"She's sick, Bruce has been taking care of her."

"If she's sick, she needs to be evaluated by SHIELD medics to decide her status for missions."

"I said no."

"You," Fury spoke dangerously. "Do not make the decisions around here. She can be put on noncombatant co-pilot duties, but you'll need her."

"Fine. What is the mission?" He begrudgingly concedes.

"You'll be flying to Russia to these coordinates," he hands a flash drive to Stark to project for the team. "We believe there is a sleeper cell here with soldiers created by the Red Room to emulate the abilities of you, Captain. They called it the-"

"Winter Soldier Program," Natasha finished for him, staring straight forward and with no intonation in her voice. The team shot worried glances at her and she said nothing, maintaining a state of numbness as Fury filled them in the specifics of the mission. Her brain felt like it was suddenly submerged in 10 feet of water and the sounds around her were muffled by the water as she entered her mind and let the memory take over the room.

_"Natalia," the overhead speaker in her room woke her suddenly. She was not sleeping very heavily these nights and immediately sat up to receive the set of directions she would be given. "Report to training room 001 in two minutes."_

_The lack of further directions meant that she was not being given time to change, put up her hair, or even wipe the evidence of sleep crusting over her eyes before running to the room on the other side of the compound. This room was designed to get her in trouble and no one would convince her otherwise. It was nearly half a mile away, but her body was much faster after the last few rounds of injections they had given her. _

_"Hello Natalia," a strange man greeted her from across the room. When she realized she did not recognize him, she felt almost embarrassed in her short nightdress which left her legs completely exposed and would show most of her backside if she raised her hand higher than her stomach. Of course, many men had seen her naked and enjoyed her body, but she had never been in such a state of undress before a man whom she had not met outside of the confines of her bedroom. _

_"W-who are you?" She kept her arms glued to her sides to retain what little modesty she could. _

_"I am from a new program. The Winter Soldier Program."_

_"Am I supposed to kill him?" She asked, looking up at the ceiling expectantly. _

_"You couldn't if you tried," he smirked. His hair was longer than any man she had seen before and his cheeks caved in slightly under the cheekbones. He had a bit of a height advantage on her and at least 100 pounds of muscle more than her. A black mask covered the lower half of his face, but his eyes were a steely blue and his rugged appearance made her think he had been here a while. _

_"People have a habit of underestimating me because I'm small or a girl. But I was trained to kill, probably just like you."_

_"I'm not here to kill you," he said menacingly. _

_"Then why are you here?"_

_"I think you know, Natalia." He advanced toward her slowly, before quickly pinning her arms above her head and pressing her against the wall of the large room. In a few seconds, he had discarded both her nightgown and his shiny silvery armor and his rough fingers were rubbing her small mound lazily. His length was pressed against her left leg and she could absently tell that it was larger than most of the men she had felt before. _

_"Stop!" She screamed out. "I want a different punishment. What did I do?"_

_"You stupid little bitch. You don't get to choose. You're my reward."_

_"Please stop," she cried. She rarely cried after the first few years, but pressed against this wall with the man before her who was so much more violent than those she had before. He moved his left hand up to her throat and squeezed tightly, her eyes beginning to roll backward as she tried to breathe out another plea. _

_"Shut up, bitch. I earned you. Now you're gonna do what I say or your class will be forgotten with no Widow."_

_"Kill me," she croaked out. "I don't care. Just please, don't do this."_

_It was the first time she begged for death, but not the last. She barely remembered the rest of the interaction, except her head hitting the hard floor repeatedly as he moved from choking her, to thrusting violently or some combination of both. When she limped back to her room with no clothes and blood dripping from her backside down the backs of her legs, she pulled a loose screw from the cabinet outside the infirmary. The infirmary was rarely used since they were left to survive through whatever pain they had received, but they would never be so merciful as to let them die from what would have been slowly fatal injuries. You either died from a fatal injury or you were repaired just enough to be sent back out. She had noticed the loose screw a few weeks prior when she carried a younger girl to the infirmary after her first mission went south and she returned more blood than girl. _

_On the way back to her room, she sliced her wrists vertically, crudely with the dull metal. It wasn't deep enough to die, clearly, she thought when she woke up the next day with the screw missing and a lock on the outside of the door. She was escorted to and from her rooms after that. _


	29. Chapter 29

It took a few hours of sleep after Natasha passed out to shake her from the memories and by the time her eyes flew open, she'd relived nearly every encounter she had with the Winter Soldier.

"How were they recruited?" She asked the men around her to get filled in on the briefings as she got dressed. They wouldn't let her close the door all the way, even though she had no blades and JARVIS was enabled in her bathroom as well.

"Mostly prisoners of war from World War II. Fury says there were at least 12 based on Viktoriya's accounts."

"So you could be seeing old war buddies," she replied to Steve as she pulled her hair into a ponytail.

"My men weren't taken alive, Natasha. They didn't do this to you."

"That wasn't why I was asking, Steve. But I guess that's comforting."

"Natasha, how many do you remember?"

"I only interacted with one. I didn't even know there were several, but I did know it was a program, so I suppose I should have."

The team seemed relieved at this statement as she emerged from the bathroom in her skintight black suit, gun strapped around her leg.

"What?"

"There's only one active that they have been able to track so far. The sleeper cell is suspected to be using one active soldier and have the rest in some crude form of cryo. It's unlikely that the one they've tracked and is active is the one you know, which will simplify things." Tony explains.

"You and Clint will be co-piloting and you'll be non-combatant on this mission."

"That's not fair, why isn't Clint non-combatant too?"

"Clint, when was the last time you unexpectedly passed out from lack of food and overexertion?"

"Never have, Cap." He affirms. "Nat, it's for the best. Especially on this one."

"And what about the next mission? Will I have to sit back and watch that one too?"

"This threat has to do with you specifically. We had to report what you told us about Russia's attempts at a super soldier in case it became a threat and then your handler gave us even more reason to suspect. We can talk about other missions later," Steve said as they boarded the helicarrier. The SHIELD pilots exited the plane and Clint and Natasha took their places in the cockpit.

She had been disconnected from the IV fluids when she woke up, but she could feel them sloshing around her stomach and she moved. Her suit felt a bit tighter, too, and she resolved that she would fight them when they returned to avoid any more unnecessary weight gain.

"It's about an 8 hour flight, guys. Let's go over the plan of attack," Clint said after switching into a glide and walking Natasha back into the main area of the plane. While they discussed strategy, she managed to stay unnoticed as she slipped into the bathroom on board. It was a small space with just a toilet, sink, and a few cabinets with first aid supplies, but she knew there would be a pair of medical-grade scissors for cutting stitches stashed in one of the cabinets with a first aid kit. In total, it took less than two minutes to locate and decide that her ankles would be the next best option, in part because of ease of access in her suit.

The skin over her ankles was thin and would not result in satisfying cuts, but it would do for now. She took the opportunity to make 20 marks on each one, careful not to cut too deeply this time. Then, she replaced the scissors and flushed the toilet, making all the right sounds and motions to indicate she had to use the restroom before exiting, wholly unnoticed by the team, who were still discussing attack strategies. She felt much more refreshed and able to tackle this mission, but they were still at least 7 hours out from their target, so she resolved to listen to their chatter and occasionally banter with them. A few of her teammates offered small smiles at her attempts, glad to see her trying to get back to some sense of normalcy.

About thirty minutes before they reached their destination, the team turned to her.

"We shouldn't be gone for more than two hours and we will all be on comms. If something happens or you need one of us, you can call. There's nothing dangerous on this ship, so you should be okay, but I've enabled JARVIS in all areas..."

"Got it, don't act psycho while you're gone." She said, doubting Tony's last statement as she had already hurt herself and nothing had happened.

"Natasha," Bruce said warningly.

"Sorry doc, don't act like I'm sick."

Clint gave her a firm hug before he left the ship and signed a few blanket reassurances before running into the wooded area in front of them. As soon as her teammates were out of earshot, she muted her comms and let out a sigh of relief.

"JARVIS?" She called out tentatively and heard no response. "I know you're there."

The plane remained silent, meaning Stark must have missed something on their way out. She smiled to herself as she retrieved the scissors once again.

"Comms check #1, Nat?" Steve's voice rang in her ear.

"Still as fine as when you left two minutes ago, boys. Are you all in position?" The various men checked in and called out their positions as she muted once again to focus on the tasks at hand. First: get rid of the disgusting sloshing in her stomach from the fluids. This would not be a difficult task since she was nauseous from the IV anyway, but just as she began to stick a finger down her throat, she was reminded of the sensation of men entering her mouth violently and she quickly pulled her hand away.

Okay, she thought to herself, vaguely aware of the chatter on comms indicating that they had seen movement in the building. I've got to get calm first, so I need to cut first. She removed both of her boots and tall socks, which she had pulled up over the legs of her suit. The panic in her mind made her reckless and she had to use all of her concentration to focus on not cutting too deeply, just like the cuts in the hours before.

"Shots fired, he's moving toward you, Clint. Is anyone hit? All report."

Her hand slipped when she heard this, slicing a thick line into the skin just below her toes.

"Fuck," she hissed. Each man reported that they were fine as she frantically covered the wound with toilet paper to stop the bleeding.

"Natasha, report."

"Just fine boys, I think you've got a bigger threat than me staring at trees," she grunted in a strained voice that she hopes came across as boredom. On the floor, she managed to scoot herself toward the bathroom and dunked the scissors into the toilet to rinse off the blood before shaking the droplets dry and hoping no one would notice them out of place in the cabinet near the floor. She would have time to move them if the soldier moved away from Clint's position about 50 yards into the woods from the helicarrier, but she was confident her team would take them down before that. Most likely, Clint would get them with a paralytic arrow and they would be collected within minutes, which meant she really needed to stop this bleeding. Lucky for her that her uniform was black, so she replaced the toilet paper with a stack of clean sheets, flushed the evidence, and replaced her sock, rolling it up under her suit so that she wouldn't accidentally roll it down when undressing if one of the boys watched.

"Tony, I could use an assist here."

"20 meters your 3 o'clock... running closer but zig-zagging... I may have a better shot, Legolas."

"You don't have paralytics, point him my way."

"Why is he wearing that mask?"

"Later, Steve!"

"Alright, he's headed straight your way. Banner, any luck cracking the compound?"

"I'm almost in. There are heat signatures for 11, so it must be all of them. But it looks like they're moving, not in cryo."

"No one is supervising?"

"Looks like maybe our guy on the run was."

"Banner, do not enter. JARVIS's scans show weapons. Head back to the carrier and wait with Nat. Clint? Update?"

There was silence for a few moments.

"Barton, report."

"Stark, come collect," he replied breathlessly. "Looks like an about 30-year-old male. Long Brunette hair. Blue-grey eyes. Pretty muscular, kinda short though."

"Got it," Fury chimed in. "Bring him directly to SHIELD."


	30. Chapter 30

When Bruce made it back to the helicarrier, Natasha was leaning against the cool metal in the cockpit, legs strewn over the arms of the seat. She was doing the best she could to mask her suspicions about the one they had managed to capture.

"What was going on?" She asked quietly. "I couldn't tell much from the comms chatter. And I wasn't listening that hard if I'm being honest."

"Well, Clint went treetop to survey the hour and we spotted the compound, which is mostly underground. Tony used infrared scanners to find out where the people were and there were 11 shapes mulling around toward the center of the compound and one near the door, darting back and forth between the others and the door itself. So we drew him out with a little bit of firing, but he's quick and pretty clearly well-trained. There were weapons capabilities form the compound, though, so Tony didn't want me to enter. It sounds like they got him with one of Clint's paralytic arrows and they're sending a bigger team to infiltrate the compound since we have the target."

"Did you get a look at him?"

"No, but they described him on comms, did that sound like him?" His tone was back to being clinical and doctoral.

"I don't remember," she lied.

"That's okay," he accepted her lie so easily. "Sometimes your mind represses traumatic events or details of them."

She wished, more than anything, that her mind would repress any fo her memories of the Red Room. There were footsteps approaching outside of the plane and she began the preflight routine to get them headed out, signaling for Bruce to leave.

"Hey Nat," he said as he entered the cockpit and took over his part of the preflight.

"You got him pretty easily." She notes, careful to keep an even tone.

"Yeah. I don't think you should go back there, just in case, though."

"I can't avoid it forever, Clint. And I'm not a coward. Eventually, they'll bring him in and I'll probably have to do some of the questionings, I'm the only one who knows anything anyway."

"I just don't think it's a good idea in your condition."

"You got to go out there and take him down and you have burns! Those take much longer to heal than my cuts."

"And when was the last time you physically ate a full meal? Not IV fluids?"

"I don't see how that's relevant."

"Because you keep passing out, Nat! You're…" he sucks in a deep breath. "You're wasting away in front of us and I don't want to lose you."

"I'm sure they would find you another suitable partner, it's not like I'm the only one SHIELD has for you…" Her eyes never leave the instruments in front of her and she flicks switches and turns dials.

"Tasha, look at me."

She peels her eyes away from the dashboard, not turning her body and still focused on the flight.

"I don't want someone else. I want you. I want you to be my partner and I want you to be the one I fall asleep next to every night and wake up next to every morning. I want to see you get healthy because I care about you and I… I think I'm falling in love with you."

"You're not falling in love with me, Clint. You don't want the baggage I have, I promise."

"I do, though. I've been there since the very first day, Nat. I was the one who got you out of there and I will be there for every single day after. Every nightmare and cut and memory and every other thing you think is too much for me. And I'll be there every time you push me away, every time you push everyone away. And every time you tell yourself you don't deserve everything you have now, I want to be there to tell you that you do. Because I have seen how you have grown and it seems like nothing to you, but I've seen how you trust people more now, how you only look over your shoulder once an hour instead of five times in safe situations. And I want to be here for all of the other amazing things you're capable of."

"I don't know if this is a good idea. You're going to get hurt."

"I trust you. You would never hurt me."

"I don't know if I trust you, yet. Sometimes…" she quietly turned her head back to her lap and twisted a strand of her hair anxiously. "Sometimes my brain still gets a bit confused about you."

"We'll work on that together, too."

"This isn't going to magically fix everything you think is wrong with me."

"I don't think you need to be fixed, Nat. You need some help healing, that's all."

"I can't promise that this will work."

"Neither can I. But I would like to try if that's alright with you."

"It's not like we can go on dates right now, what would this even look like?"

"I would like your permission to be your boyfriend. Whatever that looks like, I'm in. One hundred percent."

"I don't know what it looks like, though."

"How about we go on a date in the compound. A picnic, on the roof. Just the two of us for the night, away from everyone else."

"You won't pressure me to eat?"

"Not more than you would at a normal dinner with the team. But we can spend some time getting to know each other outside of the team and our issues."

"That sounds… nice." She smiled at him. "Now, let's get this thing flying home."


	31. Chapter 31

When they got the helicarrier on a gliding path toward SHIELD, she tried to argue with Clint about being allowed to go to the back with him, but he would not budge. She didn't remember ever describing the Winter Soldier she knew to him, but it was possible that she had forgotten about it. In either case, she was not confident that she would be able to walk on her ankles and foot; they were pulsing with every step she took and she could feel the blood that had pooled at her toes, making them disgustingly slick.

"Clint, am I supposed to just stay up here and stare at the wall until we get back? That's ridiculous."

"What are you going to do if it is him?"

"I-" she stumbled over her words, unsure how she would react. "I was trained to deal with it, I'll be fine."

"I don't want you to just be fine. And I don't think you will be."

"Clint, I'm going to have to see him at some point. Wouldn't it be easier here? With all of you?"

"I guess that makes a bit of sense…" he trailed off. "Maybe I should check with the others first?"

"Clint." She said firmly.

"Alright."

"Could… um, could you help me back there?"

"Why? What's wrong? What did you do?"

"Clint," she sighed. "I haven't been hooked up for a few hours, I'm just a little bit dizzy."

"Right, right. Of course. I'm sorry, Tash."

"It's okay," she said as she wrapped her arm over his shoulder, cradling her bad foot so that more weight was taken off of it as she leaned against him. She felt bad for the extra weight of her body pulling on his side and mumbled an apology under her breath and she stumbled down the narrow walkway with him.

"For what?"

"Being so heavy… You have to help me…"

"Tash, you barely weigh anything. I could carry you without any extra effort. You are not a burden for taking up space."

She shrugged off his response as they walked through the door to be met with a scene of chaos. Clint noticed that his mask had been removed and Steve was in a near-catatonic state in the corner, with Bruce attempting to bring him back.

"It wasn't…" Steve got up from his spot and came within inches of Natasha's. His eyes were nearly bloodshot and frantic. "Was this him?"

"I haven't seen yet, what's going on?"

"I…" Steve stuttered. "Just tell me it wasn't him."

"Tony?"

"It seems that Steve's friend from, you know, the dinosaur days, did not die. He was captured. And you're looking at him."

Clint searched his partner's face, still blocking the small girl's view of the paralyzed body laid in the center of their jet.

"Clint, please move," her voice shook, but she remained strong in her resolve.

"This is not a good idea."

"Better now than sometime without all of us here to support both of them," Bruce interjected as he pulled Steve back to a seat.

"For the record, I do not think this a good idea. At all."

"Yeah, yeah Legolas we get it. Step aside."

Natasha took in the sight before her and instantly knew that it was him, but steeled her face as she walked closer and looked at his body, paralyzed and unmoving in front of her. Her brain played quick flashes of her memories of him: the fear on her face the first time, he head hitting the hard concrete behind her bed, the sadistic look in his eyes as she was on top of him, the rough entering and thrusting that shook the bed, the blood dripping down her legs when she disobeyed him and he took a jagged piece of armor and drew a deep line on her thigh. She Met his eyes, open and fearful of the people around him but still the same steely blue color.

"Nat?"

If she was quick enough, she could probably grab the scissors from the bathroom and kill him right here and now. She would probably be in a decent amount of trouble with SHIELD, but that wouldn't be anything new. The bigger issue was that she was fairly certain she could not walk unassisted at this point. So instead, she collapsed to the ground and stared ahead, not passing out, but not speaking to any of her teammates.

After a few minutes of trying to get her attention and pull her out of the state she was in, she felt someone sit down on either side of her. She was comforted by Clint's rough hands, but the person on the other side also grabbed her hand but made no move to talk to her. She slowly turned her head to see Steve sitting next to her, still in shock, but comforting her.

"Steve…"

"No, Nat. This isn't your fault, don't you dare say you're sorry."

"He didn't have a choice…"

"But I left him."

"You thought he was dead! Of course you left."

"I failed him. And I failed you. If I hadn't left him, this wouldn't have happened to you."

"Steve…" she exhaled. "Yes, it would have. It's not… It's not about the person for them. If it hadn't been him, it would have been one of the others and maybe it wouldn't have been the exact same, but it still would have happened. Would the person that you knew do this?"

"Never!"

"Then it was him. It was whatever they did to him. For all we know, they did all of the same things to him and Steve… I would have done anything during that time to avoid more of their punishments. You could never understand how awful it was, how you would do anything they said to avoid them doing what they wanted."

"That doesn't make it okay to do what he did." She knew that if he knew what she had done, he would probably try to convince her that it wasn't her fault, but his statement solidified her belief that she deserved everything she did to herself. She was just as bad as the person they captured, and she would make them see it too.

"No, it doesn't." She replied softly and laid her head on her partner's shoulder.


	32. Chapter 32

"Did he talk? Do we have any information?" Maria Hill began the barrage of questions before they had even all exited the plane.

"No. Yes." Tony replied, escorting him behind Hill toward the building, shortly followed by Dr. Banner and Steve, who was still in a mild state of shock. Clint and Natasha followed behind, turning post-flight checks over to the SHIELD crew and she leaned heavily against him as they walked. She didn't know if it was blood loss or truly the lack of nutrients in her system, but every step felt like a massive exertion of energy she could not afford to expend. Her foot hurt like hell and she could feel the disgusting mess she had created at the toe of her boots and would likely need a new pair before their next mission.

"I'm going to change," she said to him. "I'll meet you in the debrief room in a few?"

"Are you sure you can make it to your locker and back?"

"Clint, I'll be fine."

"I would feel better if I took you."

"Clint, I'm not changing in front of you. You aren't getting that lucky before we've even been on a date, mister." She said it playfully, with a cheeky and carefree grin that almost had her fooled about her mood. Almost.

"Can I at least take you down there and wait for you outside the locker room?"

"If you insist," she said as he guided them in that general direction. When they reached the locker room, she leaned against the wall on her way in, missing the worried glances of her teammate as he considered her extremely frail state. When she made it to her locker, the room was empty, but she carried her clothes to one of the floor to ceiling privacy stalls anyway. She ripped off a few wads of paper towels and wet them in the sink, letting them rest on the plastic toilet paper cover as she peeled off her skintight suit and deposited it on the floor. The cut was deeper than she had originally thought and the edges of her skin were not quite touching, but the bleeding had subsided, so she wrapped her bloodied sock tightly around the wound and shoved it into her tennis shoe, hoping the bulge was not noticeable. She dabbed gently at the dried blood around her ankles and on her foot, eventually giving in and scrubbing to rid herself of the evidence.

Once she was certain that all the blood was gone, she flushed the wet and bloody paper towels down the toilet and emerged in a loose-fitting long-sleeve t-shirt, leggings that she had tucked around the heels of her feet to cover her ankles, and tennis shoes. She deposited the bloodied suit in the laundry chute at the back of the room and dropped her ruined boots in after. Before she left, she stopped at her locker once more to retrieve a few tablets of ibuprofen and the spare training knife she kept in her locked, which she stashed in the shoe of her unwounded foot.

"Ready?" She asked Clint, giving him a soft, but tired smile. It had been nearly 20 hours since they had left the tower and they were both drained from the mission and flights.

"Is there something you need to tell me?" He eyed her suspiciously and she instinctively pulled the sleeves of her shirt down over the heel of her hands.

"No?"

"You were in there for a while."

"Clint, I'm a bit slower these days…"

He seemed to accept this and swept her into his arms instead of walking at her slow pace.

"Do you promise you didn't do anything while you were in the locker room?" He whispered so quietly into her hair that she barely heard him.

"I promise," she leans her head into the stiff pillow of his chest and he sways gently while he walks. She's so peaceful and calm, comforted by his warmth that she doesn't notice as she quickly drifts off into her first peaceful sleep of weeks. He smiles when he looks down to talk to her and sees her nose tucked into his shoulder, eyelids fluttering slightly, but never opening. On a quick detour to the debriefing room, he places her on the couch in the room next door and dims the lights.

"Where is Romanoff?" Fury asks expectantly as he enters the room.

"Next door sleeping. She's sick, remember?"

"We will need her report first thing when she wakes."

"She only flew the plane and stood guard on it while we completed the mission."

"You know the rules," Hill lightly chastised him.

"So," Fury begins. "Who is he?"

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," Steve says flatly. "Born on March 10, 1917, and served in the US Army, 107th Infantry. Presumed dead."

"Stark, can you pull up everythi-"

"Already on it, Captain Hook."

"So you know him, Steve?" Hill asks, turning to him with an inquisitive, but caring expression.

"He was my best friend."

"Was?"

"Bucky is dead."

"So who is in the holding cell downstairs waiting to be interrogated?"

"Whoever he is now, I don't know him anymore. The Bucky I know would never do this."

"Do what? Risk everything for his country and happen to survive and get captured?"

"He's the one that did it."

"Did what? Someone better start explaining or I'm going to make you all ride desks for the rest of your careers."

"It's not really our place, Nick," Bruce said calmly.

"I don't really give a damn, Banner. Start talking."

"How much do you know about Natasha's time in the Black Widow program?"

Hill and Fury exchanged glances, not responding to his question.

"Unless you already know what we're talking about," Tony says dangerously, his eyes leaving the screens in front of him. "Is there something you'd like to share, Nick?"

"We don't know anything more than you do from Viktoriya."

"But you suspect something."

"Natasha was not the first Widow we've known to escape the program. There was another, from her class. She's officially dead, gunshot to the head."

"How do you survive a gunshot to the head?"

"Our best guess?" Fury nods his head at Hill, giving her permission to continue. "The bullet was extremely narrow, no side-to-side movement in an extremely controlled environment, and high velocity led to minimal damage. That, and a combination of lazy disposal of bodies and good acting. But she was… damaged. She didn't last very long outside of the Red Room and she killed herself a few months after we rescued her."

The rest of the men in the room exchanged another set of worried glances, seeing the parallels being the Widow and Natasha.

"Why is this the first we are hearing of it?"

"The Widow… She left a note. For Natasha. Clint, your rescue of Natasha was not an accident. It was planned."

"Bruce, is this even possible?" Clint breathed, feeling his head spinning.

"I… It's technically possible, though the likelihood is extremely slim. As for the trauma, I think we all know that it is not only a possibility, but extremely likely given what they went through."

"We were never sure, with the one before Natasha, what was real and what was made up from the hallucinations. So, we may know more than you, but we don't know if it's real or not."

"I need to go check on her," Clint excused himself.

"So, what has Natasha said about the Winter Soldier?"

"The person that you have in custody assaulted her, and probably others, repeatedly and violently." Dr. Banner states. "He is extremely violent with his victims and should not be underestimated. If he came down as easily as we think, I think it's safe to assume that they knew we were coming. Viktoriya probably planned this, too."


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N: Hi! I would love to hear some feedback about how we feel about the story so far, any things you want to see/don't want to see. Please be careful and read at your own risk. If you are suffering with self-harm, eating disorders, or any kind of trauma, please seek help from someone you trust. Even if it's just so that someone else knows what's going on, you should not be alone. My messages are open if you need to be directed to resources!**

"Hey beautiful," he said, gently shaking Natasha awake from her sleep. She blinked rapidly a few times, looking around the room and considering where she was.

"How long was I asleep?"

"Not long, maybe 20 to 30 minutes. Was your sleep alright?"

"It was pretty nice, actually. How are things going next door?"

"Well, it turns out that SHIELD knows more than we thought."

"W-what do you mean? About me?"

"I'm not quite sure. They said…" he hesitates.

"What did they say?"

"Let's just go talk to Fury, okay?"

"Clint," she says, not moving from the couch. "I'm not going in there if he already knows everything. He can fire me from over here."

"Nat, he doesn't know anything about all of you, as far as I know."

"Okay," she responds hesitantly, staggering to her feet before black spots begin to form in her line of vision and she sits again.

"Nat," he sighs. "What can I get you that you will eat?"

"I'm fine."

"Tasha, if you pass out here, they will take you to the SHIELD med bay and I won't be able to do anything a damn thing about it. Please just eat something so you won't pass out."

"You need to eat, too, Barton."

"I do. What can I get you from the cafeteria?"

"Uh…" She stammers. "I've never actually eaten anything from there before.."

"Sure you have, I've been with you and we've gone a few times, plus when you first came. Just anything that sounds manageable."

"Clint," she sighs. "I usually threw it away or cut things up so it looked like I was eating and threw little pieces on the floor or up my sleeve. I've never eaten here before."

"Oh," she does not miss the disappointment that crosses his face. "Well, why don't I just grab you a PB & J and some fruit?"

"That's a bit… heavy, don't you think?" Peanut butter, potatoes, pasta, and most meats were the foods that the Red Room would give them just before missions when they would need to be ready to expend energy without passing out or becoming weak. She knew it had to be high in calories based on that and she had no interest in eating something that would make her fat and useless at a time like this. "Do they have any salads? Or light granola bars?"

"I will look when I get down there. Will you be okay for a little bit on your own?"

"Of course, Hawkeye." She winks at him and stumbles her way across the room as soon as the door shuts behind him. On her first day at SHIELD, she had learned how thin the walls were and, in her opinion, it was the stupidest thing about the organization. They make so much talk about protecting the citizens of the United States and being a secure organization, yet they can't soundproof their briefing rooms. Although she missed a few words, you could generally hear the whole conversation just by pressing your ear against the wall.

"-the other one … issues. They did some kind of … that made them … She killed herself even after we … her and made her … We haven't seen any of … in Natasha in the field. Have you noticed … else?"

"She … fine. We are helping her … everything."

"She seems weak, has she lost …?"

"We're monitoring the … She is eating more and … working with her."

"Nat, what are you doing on the floor?" Clint eyes her suspiciously, arms full of food.

"I fell?" She tries weakly.

"Nice try," he extends his hand, offering to help her stand. "What did you hear?"

"They're talking about my weight," she says flatly.

"It's a bit of a top concern right now, Tash." He sets a tray on the small coffee table next to the couch and helps her sit back down before perching next to her. "It's pretty bad. Your heart is slowing down, you're growing hair all over your body because it can't regulate temperature in normal ways, and you are barely strong enough to make it through the day."

"I know," she admits quietly.

"Then why don't you do something about it, Nat?"

"I can't gain weight. I'll be too fat for the team and this is a terrible time to not be useful because so much is going on. I'm not on missions anyway, food is for when I am on big missions."

"You're allowed to eat even if you're not going on a long mission, Tasha. Right now, you aren't useful because you're too thin. We can't put you on missions or even let you in on certain things because you're too weak."

"Call me weak again, Barton," she laughs lightly.

"I'm serious, Nat. You've done too much damage. And I'm sorry I didn't notice before, but you have to gain some weight. You can't go on missions again as a combatant until you're at least 105 pounds."

"105? That's insane, Barton. I don't think I've ever been over 100 pounds, even at my heaviest."

"Tash, when you came to SHIELD you were 107 pounds. It was barely enough to be healthy, but even the Red Room wasn't doing this much to you."

"You're lying."

"Do you want to see the files? Because you were, Nat. You were not as unhealthy as you are now, even when you had just left the Red Room."

"Well they always fed us a bit more before missions, so we would have strength. I'm sure that's why…"

"Nat, you know that couldn't be more than a pound or two extra. The facts of the matter are that you are being crueler to yourself than the people who tortured you and we have to work on that. Because there are only two ways that this ends, Nat: either you recover or you die."

"I already told you, I want to die. You should have let me."

"Is this the way you want to go, though? Starving yourself to death or cutting too deeply on accident? Because aside from your impulsive pills move, don't lie to me, I know it was an impulse because you would've written more notes and they would have been longer, I know you. Aside from that, everything has been accidental near-death experiences. Do you actually want to die?"

"Clint," she sighs heavily. "I just can't do this anymore. I can't keep up with all of the nightmares and memories and missions where we find people and more of my past is shoved out in front of everyone. I'm tired of convincing everyone that I deserve to be here."

"But you don't have to do that, Nat. I brought you here. Fury brought you here. Hill, Steve, Bruce, Tony, everyone. We all know you belong here and I know that you think you still need to convince us, but you don't. If any one of us thought you didn't deserve to be here, you wouldn't be here."

"Still, Barton. It's too much to carry."

"It won't be if you let us help you. We talked about this in the little hospital back home, let us help you. And if, after we have tried and you've made a good, honest effort, it's still not working, then you can go back to this. But at least give us a chance."

"I don't know how to do that."

"We will help you with that too. But let's start with this salad, yeah?"

"You promise I was heavier when I came here? If I got back to that point I wouldn't be useless to the team?"

"I swear to you, Tasha. And I'll show you the SHIELD files if you want."

"Okay," she sighed, stabbing the fork into the driest piece of lettuce she could find.

After nearly an hour, Natasha had managed to finish 3/4 of the salad Clint had brought, with encouragement from him after nearly every bite to keep going. She had also managed to choke down half a bottle of apple juice to increase her blood sugar and she had to admit that she felt much better trying to stand after eating that meal.

"Thank you," she finger-spelled into his hand as they approached the room next door. He smiled at her and led the way into the room.

"You look much better Miss Romanoff," Nick said surprisingly.

"I feel better," she smiled lightly. The rest of the team gave a mixture of appreciative and surprised looks to Clint, which he responded to by telling them how a nap and a good meal can work wonders. The team seemed even more astonished at the announcement that Natasha had both eaten a meal and taken a nap that did not result in screaming, so far as they could tell.

"So, what's the situation?" She asked.

"We need your report, then the team is free to go."

"Not much to report, Fury. I sat on the plane and kept watch. Landed at 16:23 and took off at 17:57. No abnormalities to report."

"We actually need a bit more than that," Hill started softly. "Your teammates have noted that you had some prior experiences with the soldier. Steve has spoken to the man's time in the Howling Commandos, but I believe you can offer some insight into his time in the Red Room?"

Her leg began bouncing involuntarily, and Clint gave her careful pats of reassurance. She tried to focus on the burning sensation at the top of her foot, refusing to make eye contact as she recounted her experiences with the Winter Soldier.

"Thank you," Hill said, a bit shocked and unsure of what to say. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she replied automatically.

"It's not yours either, Agent." Nick Fury's voice was unmistakably the eerie calm she never wanted to experience. "He will pay for his actions."

"No!" Both Steve and Natasha chimed in.

"Now, why the hell would I not make this son of a bitch?"

"It wasn't his fault either," Natasha was beginning to scratch her skin repeatedly in the same place on the soft skin of the back of her hand.

"Like hell!" Maria voiced her opposition.

"He wasn't," she scratched harder, suddenly feeling her skin begin to peel and give way to a more smooth, shiny-feeling layer of skin that burned on contact. She let out a small gasp and touched her hadn't to it, relishing in the pain it gave her.

"Nasty little habit you have there," Fury noted. "When did that start?"

"It's a nervous tick, it's only happened once or twice that we know of," Bruce defended as Clint moved to hold her hands. "We're dealing with it. Nat, do you want a rubber band?" His tone was a warning, as if assuring her that she was being too conspicuous.

"Do you have one?" Clint asked.

"I started wearing them just in case," he replied.

"Seems like a bit more than once or twice. SHIELD medics should check her out."

"I'm keeping an eye on it, actually," Bruce replied angrily.

"Alright, calm down big guy. Would either of you," she said turning again to Steve and Natasha. "Like to explain why we shouldn't torture this guy for all he's worth and then give him the firing squad?"

"If you do that to him, you'd have to do it to me, too."

"Nat…" Tony said.

"No, it's true." She said angrily, snapping the rubber band quietly against her hand, avoiding rolling up her sleeves in front of Hill and Fury. "He's only doing these things because they brainwashed him. Whatever they did to him was a little more… insidious than how they kept the Widows in line. But it's the same concept. It's not him."

"It's not," Steve affirms. "My best friend is still in there somewhere. Can we please just have him evaluated? Medically and psychologically? See if we can reverse this first?"

"Fine," Fury concedes. "But if they can't figure it out with Stark and Banner in 7 days, we're going with my plan. You're all dismissed. Tony, Bruce, report to Level 3. And… Agent Romanoff?"

"Yes?" She briefly looks up from her hand.

"I hope you… get better soon." He says dangerously, and the urge to pull the knife out right then and there to calm herself down nearly overwhelms her.

"Let's go," she says through gritted teeth, storming toward the door.


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N: The last chapter was a MONSTER chapter because the two before it were on the shorter side. I hope that makes up for it! **

"I swear to god, if you don't let me hit something, I'm gonna blow up," Natasha says as she storms through the front door of the tower, throwing it open and moving toward the stairs at an alarming rate.

"She needs a release," Clint says, putting his arm up in the way of Dr. Banner, who was already protesting to her burning off the few calories she had managed to eat for lunch.

"She could pass out again or hurt herself."

"JARVIS, are you tracking Natasha's vitals? Can you tell us if she attempts any actions other than hitting the punching bags?"

"Yes sir," the AI responds promptly.

"See? It's not that big of a problem, Banner." Clint leaves him in the lobby, following Natasha down to the training room, where she is already in full swing beating on the punching bag.

"Nat, slow down," she is more aggressive and quicker than he has seen her before, even in the first few weeks he had known her.

"He knows." It isn't a question and there is no hesitation in the statement, she has fully convinced herself of it.

"Nat…" he sighs, approaching cautiously. "Nat, look at me."

"Barton, I need to get this out of my system." Her eyes do not leave the bag in front of her and the tone in her voice is dangerous.

"You won't like what I have to say, either," Bruce says as he enters the room. "But you can't do that if you want us to keep your secrets from SHIELD."

"What's the point?' She yells, throwing her arms above her head and pacing across the room and fiddling with the ends of her sleeves. "He already knows. I know he does."

"Do you think he would have let you come back here if he knew everything?"

"Banner is here. He would trust him. I have to go… I can't stay if he knows."

"Nat, calm down."

"I can't…" She says, still pacing and now openly heaving, chest puffed out and threatening to topple her small frame. "I can't do this, Clint. I know I said… I can't. I need to…"

"No, Nat. You can make it through this, you're strong," he walks over to meet her mid-pace and draws her head up, moving her gaze from the floor to his eyes. Her eyes are dark, lost to the spiraling thoughts in her head. "Come back to me, Nat. You can do this."

"I need…"

"No, Tasha. You don't need to hurt yourself. You are allowed to be upset, you can ride this out without causing pain."

She moves to rake her fingernails across her skin under her sleeves, but he stops her before she can.

"Bruce, we might need to sedate her," he says over his shoulder and he nods his understanding.

"No!" She screams loudly. "They'll come back. I don't… I already slept today, don't make me do it again!"

"Then we have got to calm down, Tasha. Can you breathe with me?"

"Clint, please," she exhales desperately and searches his eyes for any sign of hope.

"It's okay, beautiful. He pulls her into his lap on the ground of the training room and gently strokes her hair. They had been in this position so many times and he finally felt like there was something he could do to help. "Alright Tash, you're gonna breathe with me. Ready? Breathe in." He counts to eight in his head silently and she takes two shallow breaths as he pulls in one. "Hold." He counts to four. "And let's breathe out, give me a big puff out."

By the time Bruce returns, she is quietly breathing against his chest, even with his own breaths.

"Okay, do you want to talk about it Tasha?"

"No," she says in a small voice.

"Do you want to give me the knife you brought in?" Tony says, following Bruce through the door.

"No." Her head doesn't leave Clint's chest, but she visibly tenses.

"JARVIS, can you tell me where it is?"

"Scans show that the metal object is in her shoe, Sir."

"Nat, I'm gonna take off your shoes now, okay?" Clint says quietly, careful not to move yet.

"You can't," she cries softly.

"Why is that, beautiful?" He wipes the tears from under her eyes and runs his fingers through her thinning hair delicately.

"I need it. I don't have anything else."

"You don't need anything else, Nat."

"I do."

"Give us one good reason, Red. You knew we would find it, you knew JARVIS would tell us the second you used it."

"I didn't want it to h-hurt myself," she admits quietly.

"Then why?" Bruce asks, perplexed and she simply buries her face into Clint's shoulder in response.

"Nat, come on, tell us. Maybe we can let you keep it if we know why you have it." Bruce gives him a wide-eyed look as Clint tells the girl on his lap this. Despite the serious tone of the conversation, he can't help but take notice of how cute she is curled up in his lap, hanging onto his shirt. The burns under his shirt were stinging under the slight pressure of her body against his, but that was not important to him at the moment. He had successfully managed to calm her down once, so maybe he could be helpful to her after all.

"I can't," she says so quietly that he is the only one who hears it.

"Is it because you want to hurt yourself with it or because you are afraid to tell us the real reason? Or you're afraid to tell us because you want to hurt yourself?" Bruce asks, his doctor voice taking over once again.

"I need to protect myself." She says it so plainly that you would not tell she had struggled to get that out in the minutes prior.

"We are here to protect you and JARVIS will alert us in seconds if there is a threat entering the tower."

"Unless…" Tony muses. "Are you afraid of something that's already in the tower? Or someone?"

She swallows hard and makes eye contact with Tony, refusing to break the stare and silently wishing he was less observant. His natural talent for picking up on small details was starting to piss her off.

"Shut up, Stark," she finally spits.

"It's okay, Nat," he says from behind her, dejectedly. "I didn't think you would get over it this quickly and that… That makes a lot of sense. I understand."

"It's not…" she begins breathing heavily again as she turns to face him. "I don't… It's…"

"I thought we had made some progress and were going to try this, though."

"I am! I want… I want to. It's just…" he holds her hand to his heartbeat and exaggerates his breathing to remind her to do the same. "It's a bit… much, right now."

"Why now, Nat?"

"You can't be that stupid, Legolas," Tony chastises. "She just had a very close contact encounter with her assaulter and had to recall her assault."

She glares daggers at Tony again before flinching away from Clint as he begins to ask if that is the reason.

"That's okay, Nat. You don't have to be comfortable with me right now, I understand." His tone was still conveying that he seemed crushed, but he knew that her well-being was much more important than his desire to start a relationship with her right now.

"I suppose you can keep it for now," Tony says. "But if you hurt yourself even a tiny bit with it, we take it. Do you understand?"

She nods softly at his harsh words and collapses against Clint once more. Her mind was screaming at her not to be this close to him, but a small part of her felt comforted by him and was filled with an odd feeling she didn't fully recognize at the time. Later she realized that what she had found during all of these moments of her holding her at her lowest and worst points, despite the fear and anger she misplaced and took out on him, she finally felt at home.


	35. Chapter 35

The next few days pass without incident, and Natasha agrees to a small meal once or twice a day if they're lucky. She manages to resist her urges to harm herself by scratching her arms or snapping the rubber band, both of which, as long as she's careful not to break the skin, do not alert JARVIS to the harm she is inflicting. Despite his initial reluctance, even Bruce is persuaded to let Natasha train for an hour each day if it is with one of her teammates. They fall into a sort of easy routine, with the only small problem of Natasha's reluctance to share any further information or trauma with her teammates.

"I don't see why we need to talk about it if I am getting better," she says, picking up the Glock and pointing it downrange at the moving target while Clint picks up his bow and arrow.

"If we don't talk about it, then you will go back to your old habits as soon as we relax the observations on you. Which means we can't loosen any restrictions until you open up to us."

"Steve doesn't have to open up and he's been basically brain-dead since we found… him." She shudders as the image of the Winter Soldier re-enters her mind.

"Steve hasn't been hurting himself as far as we know."

"That's not fair! You hurt yourself and you don't have to talk about it and you haven't found anything that would say I've been doing anything either! So even if I'm not hurting myself, you wouldn't be happy and you would still be forcing me to talk."

"Nat, I don't want you to start-" he pauses and lowers his bow such that the arrow is now pointed at the ground. "Hang on. Did you say 'if' and how come you said we haven't found anything instead of 'I haven't been hurting myself?'"

"Clint, you're overthinking this. I just said it weird, it doesn't mean anything."

"Show me your arms," he says, gently placing his bow on the ledge in his lane and walking toward her. She hesitantly flips on the safety and places her gun facing downrange in her own lane.

"This is ridiculous, Clint."

"Maybe," he says distractedly. She rolls her lightweight long-sleeved shirt midway up her bicep, as far as she can without messing up the IV in her left arm. The scars that lie on her arms are ugly to her, with varying shades of purple and red, brown scabs, and irritated red edges. Although some had broken open from the rubber band and she had slightly bruised skin in some areas, there were no new cuts for him to inspect.

"Are you happy?"

"I'm not stupid, Tasha. Pull up your shirt and roll your waistband down." She winced at his tone but complied with his request. The cuts she had made weeks earlier were healed and beginning to scar well, but she didn't like to look at them anyway. He ran his fingers delicately over the ladder she had painstakingly carved into her sunken body. "Thighs, now," he whispered more gently, slightly tugging at the waistband.

"Clint," she hesitated, but even she couldn't ignore the heat beginning to form in her lower body as she inched her leggings down to her knees. The mass of scars was worst here, where she had been doing them and where so many men before him had made their own marks. She was too ashamed to even look as he examined them, once again running his fingers lightly over each mark.

"It's okay, Nat," he said quietly.

"It's not," she let out a shaky breath. "I know you hate them."

"I don't hate them."

She scoffed at his response. "I know you do. It's okay, I hate them too."

"I don't hate them, Tasha. I hate that you feel like you need to do this and I hate that things are this hard for you. But these," he said, running his full hand up and down the scars across her legs and lower stomach. "Don't bother me one bit."

She let out a small shudder as his fingers lightly brushed the waistband of her black silk underwear, a small luxury she had made sure to prioritize to at least feel good about one part of herself.

"I can get dressed again," she said calmly. "I still have another 20 minutes of training today."

"Or you could let me look at you a little longer," he says cheekily. "We don't have to do anything if you don't want to, but you don't have to hide on my account."

"Whatever you want, Barton."

"No, Tash. I want you to decide. What do you want to do right now?"

"I… I don't know."

"What feels right?"

"I think… I want you to kiss me."

"Like this?" He says, softly brushing his lips against hers, skin touching skin for only a few seconds.

"Yes," she says breathlessly, putting her hand behind his head and pulling him closer. In a few moments, her shoes, socks, and pants were strewn across the room and she was laying with him on top of her between her legs.

"I don't want to do anything you don't want to," he momentarily breaks the kiss to tell her.

"Shut up," she says.

"No, do you want to do this?"

"Barton," she groans. Pushing him away and letting her hands fall in between her legs.

"What are you comfortable with?"

"I don't know? What am I supposed to be comfortable with?"

"Nat, that's not what I asked."

"But that's what I asked. I don't know what's supposed to be normal, I don't know what I want. I thought… I thought I wanted the things that happened in the Red Room when they were gentle, but Tony… Maybe I didn't? I don't know what it means."

"I think we should hold off on… this. Until you've had a bit more time to decide what it feels like to want it, to really want to have sex."

"Should I at least take care of you? I mean, you aren't supposed to get boys all hot and then just leave them, right? That…" she says, looking at his tented pants. "Looks uncomfortable."

"You can if you want, Tash, but you do not have to. You are allowed to say no and you're allowed to think you want it or not know and then change your mind. You don't owe me anything just because we kissed."

"I don't? Even though I got you hard?" She says, legitimately confused by his words.

"No, Nat. Let's get you dressed." He sits back and begins searching the room for her clothes to give her. He doesn't notice it until she moves to put on her socks, but then he sees at least 40 still-red cuts on her ankles and a long cut where the edges did not touch on her foot.

"Natasha!" He cries and she is momentarily confused before pulling her legs underneath her to hide the cuts. "JARVIS," he says, sighing. "Can you get the team down here?"

"Can I at least get dressed first?!" She cries and he tosses her leggings to her gently.

"Roll up the ends to your knees."

"Clint…" she says, tears beginning to fall from her eyes. She slides the black material easily over her legs and rolls the ends up to her knees as he asked.

"No," he silences her. "Not right now, Natasha."


	36. Chapter 36

Bruce arrives first and quickly takes in the scene in front of him: Natasha cowering in the corner of the room, leggings pulled obnoxiously high and barefoot while Clint paces, arms crossed over his chest. Tony follows closely behind and Steve enters a few minutes later, dark circles under both eyes and in the same t-shirt and sweatpants he had been in for days.

"Clint, what's going on?" Bruce asks calmly.

"I don't know when or how, but she cut again. There's a bunch on her ankles and one on her foot, you probably need to look at all of them."

To his teammates' surprise, Steve quickly walks over and pulls her into a tight hug. At first, she is unsure of how to react and lets her arms lay limply at her sides before eventually giving in and letting loose a small sob she had choked back.

"I'm sorry," she cried as he continued to hold her tightly and say nothing. When he finally released her without a word, she had stopped cried and Bruce came over to examine her wounds.

"This one is infected," he says matter-of-factly. "Tony, can you get a round of antibiotics, alcohol wipes, and gauze from the medical wing?"

He leaves without a word and Steve follows closely behind out of the door.

"The others look fine," he says to Clint and the mostly vacant room. She stares down at him expectantly, waiting for the lecture she knows is coming, but it never does.

"When did this happen, Red?" Tony says as he rushes over with the supplies and gives her the antibiotic to swallow with a small cup of water. She stares blankly ahead as she takes it. "JARVIS?"

"I have no information regarding Miss Romanoff's injuries."

"They look like they're a few days old," Bruce muses.

"Did Natasha leave the helicarrier at any point, JARVIS?" Tony asks the AI, following his hunch.

"I was not enabled on your most recent mission on the helicarrier. You set up the mission, but did not activate my capabilities before leaving the Tower."

"Damnit!" He cursed himself. "I knew I missed something. Is that when you did this, Red?"

She continued to stare forward, not responding to his questions. Internally, she was still thinking about how she had almost let Clint have sex with her. Someone that the Red Room had not authorized had almost been inside of her. She had to do something to punish herself or they would kill her when she was returned to them. There was no way that she could hurt herself with all of them here and they would not let her miss any more meals or train. Just as her fingers found the IV, a hand grabbed hers and pulled it away from her body.

"No," he said firmly. "No more of this."

"What do you mean, 'no?' It's my body, I can do what I want! Unless you're saying I don't even get to control my body here, this is no better than the Red Room."

"You are not allowed to have control of your body if it means you're going to hurt yourself. And if that means I have to stay with you every minute of every day and hold both of your hands, I will."

"Steve, we've barely even seen you, why are you doing this?" She begins to cry again.

"I couldn't save him. I couldn't save my best friend. And until we figure out a way to help him from what they did, I am sure as hell going to make sure they don't get to take another one of my best friends."

For once, she had no rebuttal. She had not realized how he must have felt since they found the Winter Soldier. She had never thought about him through the lens of being Steve's best friend, only through the lens of what the Red Room had made him. It was a disservice to both the person he was and, more importantly, to her friend. It would make her a better person to consider him as both, but she couldn't felt but see the flashbacks every time someone said his name or talked about the mission. She couldn't give Steve that, so she owed him this, she decided. She always owed men something.

"Now, when did this happen and why?"

"In the helicarrier, while we were flying to the destination."

"You did this while we were all in the helicarrier, too?"

"Nat, why didn't you come to us?"

"It's not that easy!"

"Of course it is," Steve says. "Instead of cutting yourself every time you are having a hard time, you talk to us."

"You were in the middle of discussing strategy! And I can't… You guys wouldn't understand it and you wouldn't let me do it."

"Of course we wouldn't-" Clint begins.

"Wait," Tony chimed in. "Bruce and I have actually been doing a lot of research on this. It's not going to help you to take everything you can hurt yourself with because you'll just find something else."

"Yeah, but Tony, we haven't found an alternative that isn't harmful and works yet."

"But what if we let her do it?"

"Are you crazy, Stark?"

"Let me finish, bird boy." He rolls his eyes. "She needs to know she can talk to us. Red, if you could come to us and we didn't tell you that you couldn't or try to keep you away from everything you could use, would you talk to us?"

"I don't know…" she hesitates.

"What if we make a deal? We don't try to stop you, but you have to come talk to us before you do it every time. If we talk about whatever it is and you still feel like you need to cut, you can do it and Bruce or I will treat you afterward. JARVIS will only notify us and you'll only be in trouble if you don't try to talk to us first."

"That's insane, Stark," Clint says again.

"It might work," Bruce adds. "In some studies of this method, it actually lessens the need for harm because the harmer realizes that they have safe outlets to exercise instead of harming themselves. I don't love the idea of her being allowed to hurt herself, but I think it's more dangerous if we stay in the dark and find out a few days later when things are infected or worse."

"I suppose that's true," Clint concedes. "What do you think Tasha?"

"It's better than having to hide it from you all."

"What if this doesn't work? I won't lose her." Steve chimes in.

"Well, that's why we treat her right after it happens, in case she needs medical attention. But if the frequency and severity don't decrease in, let's say a week, we will try something else. Does that sound okay to everyone?"

"Do I have another choice?"

"No," all three men responded.


	37. Chapter 37

**A/N: Updates may begin to slow down because my personal and work life are picking up again, but I plan to see this story through! Reviews & ideas are always welcome, I can try to incorporate small ideas if there's anything specific you want to see (unless it's Bruce/Nat because I honestly have never hated a pairing as much as I hate that one). **

The first time she comes to them is only an hour or so later and it's not what they expected. She is not emotional or even panicked, but rather her usual sarcastic self when she tells JARVIS to have the men meet her in the living room. She's sitting on the floor in front of the couch, looking at her hands in her lap and lightly scratching at a scab on her arm.

"What's going on, Natasha?"

"Nothing," she says in a biting tone.

"Well, we all know why we are here, right?" Tony asks. "I'm glad you are trying this, Nat."

"Uh-huh, whatever, just give me a blade."

"That's not quite how this deal works. The deal you agreed to was that we would talk about what's going on and if we couldn't talk it out, then we would give it to you and provide medical treatment."

"Well you aren't going to be able to fix it, so I don't see what the point is."

"Let's talk about it anyway and, if we can't, then what does it hurt you?"

"It hurts me, Steve," she spits. "Because I have to wait even longer."

"Well, you're just going to have to deal with that."

"I'm not going to talk about it," she fumes.

"Then you're not going to get this," he says, holding up one of the blades he grabbed from his cabinet. The metal taunted her and the aching under her skin as she reached for it only for Steve to pull it away from her view. Her eyes restlessly wandered near him, trying to find the object, like a small child trying to find the adult hiding behind their hands.

"This is ridiculous, I'm not a child. I can do what I want to my body."

"If we took you to a hospital and you said that, knowing what we know, they would lock you to your bed for 72 hours as a danger to yourself and others." Bruce's words were neither taunting nor caring, just a clinical recitation of facts.

"Is this a hospital now?"

"We'll take you to one if we have to, but you could just talk to us," Tony says coolly.

"I'm not talking about this," she says again.

"Then I guess you didn't need it that bad anyway, did you? I mean if it's not worth even just talking to us, it's probably not worth harming yourself…"

"Clint and I almost had sex earlier," she blurts out at Stark's taunts. He turns red, eyes widened slightly.

"Well we didn't think he took your pants off for no reason," Tony rolled his eyes. "What's the problem?"

"I'm not…" she hesitates.

"It's okay, Nat. You're safe here," Clint reassures her, still a bit red from the revelations about his sex life.

"I'm not supposed to do that. He's not a target, so I can't choose to have sex with him. He has no valuable information to divulge, so it's inappropriate to let him fuck me. I need to punish myself for almost allowing him to make me dirtier for men who are allowed to have me."

There is a moment of silence as she squirms under the glances of the men in the room.

"See? I told you that you wouldn't want me to talk about this. I've waited as long as I can, I need to do it or train, ideally both."

"No," Tony finally stutters. "We're going to talk about this, as awkward as it might be."

"You are allowed to want to have sex with me, Nat. You do not have to follow their rules anymore, they cannot hurt you."

"I'm not supposed to want to have sex with anyone."

"It's a normal thing," Bruce says. "It is caused by chemicals in the body, it's not something that you get to choose when it happens or who it happens with. You don't think that I need to be punished for wanting to have sex with men, right?"

"Of course not," she says without hesitation.

"There are a lot of people who think I should be punished for it. But I can't control and you can't control being attracted to and wanting to have sex with Clint."

"But…" she starts, but quickly realized that she does not have a logical response. It is somewhat similar, she reasons, but there are still some important differences that make their desires different. "But they don't get to have a say in your life because they never did anything for you. The Red Room... They did raise me and keep me alive."

"I would argue they barely did that, Tasha," Clint says.

"But they did."

"Um," Bruce shifts awkwardly from bearing his weight on one foot to the other. "My parents… They kicked me out when I was 16 because I came out to them. They didn't accept who I was and even though they raised me: fed me, clothed me, and treated me much better than the Red Room treated you, they don't get to make rules like that for me anymore. I don't owe them anything."

"You never told us about them, Bruce," Tony says from next to him.

"I don't talk about it very often. I've told some people that they died. They haven't talked to me since then and god knows they wouldn't accept the Other Guy."

"That's okay," Natasha says from the floor. "You've got a new family now."

"So do you, Nat. That's the point. I don't have to do anything my parents say, even though they raised me and treated me well."

"It's different," she sighs.

"It's not. You don't owe them anything, in fact, you owe them less than that because I owe my parents nothing and they never hurt me. You owe them the exact opposite of following their rules because of how they treated you."

"What do you gain by following their rules, Nat?" Steve asks, arms creating a triangle on his spread legs, sitting on the couch.

"I don't know…"

"Then what are you afraid of?" Tony asks thoughtfully. She avoids his eyes and fiddles with the ends of her sleeves, thinking about how much she wanted to cut instead of answering the question.

"You can tell us," Clint says gently, taking a seat next to her on the floor and putting his arm around her shoulder.

"I…" she hesitated. If she told them, she would get to cut sooner, she reasoned. "If I keep up the punishments… It won't be as bad when they take me back."

"They are not getting you back," Clint says firmly, turning to face her. "Ever."

"But if they do…"

"No, Nat," Steve begins. "There's not an if. I can't speak for everyone in this room, but they will have to kill me first. I won't let you go back there. Ever." The men around him nodded in agreement.

"You guys can't protect me all the time."

"Au contrair," Tony says. "There's a chip implanted in your head, designed by me, of course. The second you enter Russia, a team is sent to your location unless I authorize otherwise."

"Stark!" She slaps her neck in anger. "I didn't authorize you to do that."

"Frankly, I don't care. The second you started telling us about that place, I knew I would never let you go back."

"Is that such a bad thing, Tasha? They could never stand a chance against Stark technology and teams."

"It's an invasion of privacy."

"And hacking JARVIS wasn't?" He refutes.

"I'd just rather be on the safe side if it happens. They wouldn't wait until we get to Russia to start punishing me. It's happened before when I thought I escaped and I barely made it that time, I can't imagine what will happen after this."

"Nothing is going to happen because we aren't going to let them take you."

"But if they do, I need to be ready."

"You're more than ready, Nat. You don't need this, you've taken out way more than a team of them."

"You don't understand, I can't fight them. And I won't let you either."

"Why not? Why are you still defending them after everything they've done."

"I don't…" she hesitates again. "I don't know. I just… I can't believe it was all for nothing, they taught me everything that's made me who I am."

"No," Clint argues. "They didn't. They don't own a single piece of your success. Everything you are, everything you were meant to be, it was always in you. It would have come out without them."

"Do you really believe that?" When she looks up at him, the edges of her eyes are rimmed with tears.

"Yes." Steve, Tony, and Bruce affirm at the same time.

"That," she laughs, wiping the tears away. "Was freaky."

"So," Bruce says calmly, but letting out a shaky breath. "Do you still feel like you need to cut?"

She squirms in her spot.

"It's okay, Nat," Clint places a small kiss on top of her head and nods lightly at Steve, who hands her the blade. Her hands shake slightly as she tries to stand, but is held in place by Clint. "Stay," he whispers.

"I can't do it here, with all of you watching."

"You don't need to do this," his voice is thick with emotion.

"I do," she cries at the sound of his voice, filled with pain. He looks her in the eyes, searching them for anything he could grasp on to.

Her hand finds its way to exposed skin on the back of her forearm as she rolls up her sleeve. The men watch her uneasily as the blade slowly moves through her skin. It's deeper than she intends and she hisses at the motion as soon as the metal breaks contact with her skin. Clint takes it from her within a matter of milliseconds and she feels the crushing guilt as he leaves the room crying, but she also feels a sense of relief at what she's done. Bruce opens his med kit next to her and puts pressure on the cut as Steve sighs heavily and Tony brews himself a cup of coffee.


	38. Chapter 38

**A/N: Woohoo! We are over 50K words! This officially means we are the 10th story under the "self-harm" tag for Avengers stories, which is kinda cool. I know a lot of people who read these types of stories as recovering/struggling self-harmers who find an outlet in reading about their favorite characters having the same struggles and how they deal with them, so I'm happy to be one of the longer pics for this kind of outlet. As always, take care of yourself if you are struggling and my DMs are always open. **

After this incident, Natasha doesn't cut for three days out of pure guilt at how much it hurt Clint to see her hurting herself. He didn't exactly avoid her, which she was thankful for, but he was shorter than usual and did not make any further advances toward their romantic relationship.

"It's weigh day," Bruce says when he sees her at the breakfast table. "We need to remove the NG tube and weigh you before breakfast to see if you have made any progress. Have you used the restroom this morning?"

"Yes," she replies, blushing slightly. He looks to Clint to confirm, who simply nods his head in response.

"Do you want to know? It can be triggering to individuals with eating disorders to see the weight that they have gained."

"I do not have an eating disorder, Bruce," she insisted. "I want to know. I want to weigh 105 pounds so I can be on the team. That's how much I weighed when I was here."

"Nat…" Clint sighs.

"Our goal is for you to-" Clint cuts off Bruce.

"105 is a good goal, for now, right doc?" Bruce nods firmly, meeting his eye.

"How much should I have gained?"

"Taking into account your increased metabolism and the hour workouts, combined with the calorie intake and calories form the tube, you should have gained at least 8 pounds in the last month."

"Great," she rolls her eyes lightly as she steps on the scale. "So only… three freaking months until I can be on the team."

"Two, it's been about a month already, so if you have met the target, it's only two more months."

"That's not the only thing before you can be on the team, Natasha," Steve adds, striding into the room and still drying his hair with a towel.

"What?" She exclaims angrily.

"You need to have your cuts checked more frequently, your foot was infected a few days ago."

"But I'm taking the antibiotic!"

"This is not a negotiation," he says.

"Natasha, please step on the scale." He presses a few buttons and the numbers climb, blink a few times, and then the machine beeps on a final number. 91.7 pounds.

"Do you see that, Clint?" The smile on her face is so wide that it's hard to be upset with her. "More than what I'm supposed to gain! I'm getting back to where I'm supposed to be."

"If only you felt that way about your cuts," he says quietly and her face immediately falls. Steve follows her out of the room to where she has run to Steve's room.

"That was uncalled for," Bruce chastises him. "I need to look over your burns."

"They're healed," he says, walking away quickly and descending the stairs to the training room.

"I guess we're making breakfast alone," Bruce says to Tony. "So, pancakes?"

In Steve's room, Natasha is sobbing, knees hugged to her chest, and slightly rocking. She's been in this position before, but Steve now notices how much less pronounced her bones look and how she looks slightly less like a shell of a person than she had the last time she was in his room.

"Why…" she says between cries. "W-why is it never good enough?"

"Oh, Nat," he pulls her into his lap and squeezes tightly. "It's more than enough, you are doing amazing. He will see that, he's just upset about the other day."

"I did-didn't want to do that," she cries. "Y-you made me. I co-could have fixed it."

"No, Nat. What you do does not fix the problem, it prolongs it until the next time and makes things worse."

"But it makes me stop thinking about it."

"That's because it's a bad habit and you can't think about anything else until you do it, then it removes the fact that all you're thinking about is hurting yourself. It doesn't do you any good and it's hurting Clint."

"I want to now, do I have to talk to all of you or can I just talk to you?"

"You don't need to do this, Nat."

"I do, Steve. I hurt him so much. I am a bad person, I need to punish myself for it."

"You are not a bad person because you hurt his feelings, Nat. That happens sometimes when you care about people."

"What do you do about it? You don't hurt yourself, so what do you do instead?"

"Talk it out with that person, write down my feelings, or just cry it out with someone I trust. You can ask Pepper and Sam, sometimes I just go to cry to them."

"Can I stay here for a little while?"

"We can stay here for a few more minutes, but you need breakfast. I think Bruce is talking about not putting the NG tube back in since you are doing so well, so you're going to have to eat three good meals and a few snacks."

"N-no," she stammered, crying harder with her head on his lap. "I can-can't do that. I'm not ready, I don't deserve it. I need the tube. Please, Steve, I don't want to be off the team longer and I can't do it without the tube yet."

"How about this," he starts, stroking her hair and mimicking a good breathing pattern for her to emulate. "If you agree to eat three meals and snacks once you reach 105, you can use the tube to help you get there. But you have to let us check your cuts every day, okay?"

"Okay…" she agrees hesitantly, beginning to calm down. "I don't… Can Bruce do it? I don't want Clint there."

"I'll talk to him, okay?" She nods in response. "Can we go back down? I think I smell pancakes."

"I guess," she says, sniffing loudly and wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Ready for breakfast?" Tony asks and she nods, eyes red and cheeks raw from rubbing them away. Steve pulls Bruce away for a few minutes and they return, Bruce giving her a small sad smile.

"Do you want blueberry, chocolate chip, or with peanut butter on top?"

"Um," she considers her options. "Chocolate chips and peanut butter on top? That would help me gain weight, right?"

"Yes ma'am," Bruce replies happily.

"Order up!" Tony begins flipping pancakes in front of her and she smiles softly at his shenanigans.

"We can put it back in after breakfast and I'll check your cuts then," Bruce whispers in her ear as she watches Tony's show in front of her. Clint doesn't emerge for breakfast or the re-insertion of her tube, and stays on the range shooting his feelings until well after lunch.


	39. Chapter 39

Like I said, my life is starting to get crazy again, so I'm not sure how frequent updates will be, but I'm dedicated to seeing this story through!

After almost two hours, Natasha had choked down two chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter on them. She had initially eaten with some speed, but slowed down with every bite as she realized how much she was eating and the lack of earning of this breakfast she had done. Despite her brain convincing her that she didn't deserve the food, the men around her encouraged her and she fought each thought with the idea that this would move her closer to being back on the team and making Clint happy.

"Someone should talk to him…" Bruce had said about midway through the meal when a long bang sounded from the range.

"He needs to calm down," Steve replied firmly. "What he said was inappropriate and isn't helping the situation."

"We are so proud of you, Red," Tony said over his shoulder as he began rinsing the dishes and placing them in the dishwasher. She hadn't replied, opting to let a single tear fall from her face onto the small stack of half-eaten pancakes in front of her.

"Alright, let's head to the lab," Bruce smiled at her gently and Tony steadied her, pulling her left arm around his shoulder as they went. She smiled sadly as they looked through the glass of the elevator to see Clint training on the range with moving targets. Tony patted her shoulder reassuringly as they descended further. She laid on the table with no fight as Bruce sedated her, inserted the tube, and moved her clothes to check for any new injuries and look at the state of her still-healing and infected cut.

"She needs his support in this," Tony sighs. "As much as I hate the fact that I am the reason he knows, she needs him to get better. She's the only one he trusts."

"I don't think that's true," Bruce mused quietly, replacing her top over her skin gently. "I think when she first came here it was, but I think she trusts you, Tony. You were there for her when the rest of us weren't."

"You didn't know-"

"I'm not saying it was our fault, but you figured it out and you did your best to support her when the rest of us couldn't. And she knows you're there for her."

"I just wish she would let us help her."

"We need to realize that her gaining weight and eating with us is a big deal. And she did try to talk to us last time and hasn't cut since then. I would say before all of this, she was cutting daily."

"I suppose that's true. I just… I want to do more for her, you know?"

"I know, Tony. You care for her, for all of us, so much. But I think the plan we've started is a good one. Maybe we should start getting people to talk to her individually as well? Ease her into the idea of one-on-one sessions so she could eventually see a therapist?"

"I don't know if I'll ever be able to get her to agree to speak to someone outside of us, but I can wait here and talk to her when she wakes up. Fury will be expecting you to go in this morning and work on the problem."

"Yes, that's true." He smiles at Tony, who has already begun rubbing circles on the back of Natasha's hand. "Are you sure you can handle everything here?"

"I got this," he replies softly. "I need to talk to her."

Bruce leaves the room quietly, taking a full bag of supplies with him, from various notebooks to assorted medical tools.

"Bruce?"

"Yes, Tony?"

"Are we getting any closer?"

"I'm on the edge of something, I can feel it. I might have something for you to do tonight."

He sat with her for nearly six hours, toying with some of JARVIS's functions on a small, handheld tablet as he waited. Her heartbeat was already much stronger than it had been in the days prior and, aside from her ankles, most of her body was healing well.

"Hey Tony," she says in a raspy voice, struggling not to itch the tube in her nose.

"Hey Red," he replies, placing the tablet to the side and giving her his full attention.

"Where is Bruce?"

"Had to go into SHIELD. I think he took Steve."

"And Clint?"

He hesitates. "He's still... training."

"Of course," she sighs, defeated.

"You know we're all proud of you, right?"

"He's not."

"He is, Nat. He just doesn't know how to show it yet, because it's hard to still see you in this much pain. I mean, I've known longer than anyone and it still hurt me so much to watch you do it to yourself."

"I asked you…" she coughs and sputters a bit, and he offers her a bottle of water. "I asked you all not to watch. I know it's hard to watch."

"It's no easier to see it after it's done."

"So just let me do what I need to do without interfering."

"But why do you need to do it? We are not going to let you go back, Nat. That's not going to happen even if you beg and plead."

"But if it does…"

"I'm not going to let that happen to you. They would have to take me too because I'm not letting them take you alone as long as I live."

"You can't do that to Pepper, Tony. You have a family to think about."

"You're part of that family, Red."

"I don't deserve it."

"You deserve it more than anyone I know, you have been through so much and made it out the other side alive. You deserve this life, this family, and all the love we can give you."

"Tony…" she says quietly.

"Please, tell me why it is you don't think you deserve my friendship, at least."

"Because I don't want to kill you, okay?" She says it in a hushed tone and so quickly that he barely registers what he hears.

"What are you talking about?"

"The last time I had someone who cared… The last time I had a friend, I killed her."

"Well, you couldn't kill me if you tried," he jokes lightly.

"I'm serious, Stark."

"Tell me what happened."

"She was the last in my class," Natasha begins pulling her fingernails across her arms, making long scratches. "We knew better than to be friends and trust me, I've learned since then. But we did it anyway because we believed we deserved a bit of friendship after everything we had been through. And we…" she stutters a bit and focuses her scratches on one area of her arm. "We got caught."

"And what happened after you got caught, Nat?"

"They…" her body began violently shaking as she sat up, leaning against the wall and hugging her knees to her chest. He had seen this position so many times before, but failed to notice the scratching. "They made me kill her. A bullet to the head without even letting me explain or make up for it. We were supposed to have months."

"Nat," he says softly, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders and trying to tear her eyes off the ground.

"We had months. We were supposed to share the responsibilities and have each other for longer. But I killed her. Our friendship killed her and I won't let that happen here."


	40. Chapter 40

**A/N: I've said it before and I'll say it again, my life is picking up and changing. I am not going to be updating as frequently, but I will be finishing this story! Reviews are really encouraging and generally do get me to upload more quickly.**

"I think there's something I need to tell you," he said cautiously, as though he expected her to slip out of his grasp. Her small shoulders were trembling beneath his large knuckles, silent tears that did not escape her eyes. Every few moments she would try to steel herself against the emotions, but she felt the water well up at the edge of her eyes regardless and she could not respond to him. She looked up to meet his eyes, begging him to understand that she couldn't respond, but wanted to hear more.

"When you were taking your nap at SHIELD, Fury… He told us something." He looked her up and down very closely, making contact with her eyes briefly to gauge her panic attack's course. She seemed to have nearly snapped out of it, but a new look of fear had replaced the sadness that had been in her eyes only moments ago.

"I knew it, I knew he…" She said quickly, her voice raspy from the unshed tears. "He was asking all those questions and he.. What does he know? Is he kicking me out? What's happening? I told you all it would come to this, I knew he would have me out of SHIELD eventually. I… Listen, can I just borrow a few grand? Just enough to make a few month's rent and bills. I… I will figure it out from there." Her mind was whizzing in a million different ways, more streams of consciousness than tabs open on Bruce's computer. Of course, she had thought of this before, but now that it was actually happening… She had so much to do, so many people to call.

"Red," Tony briefly grabbed her attention. "Nat, snap out of it. It's nothing like that."

"Start talking," she said dangerously.

"There was… another Widow at SHIELD." Immediately, every thought in her mind came to a screeching halt and the phrase repeated over and over again until the words sounded funny and she wasn't sure the spelling she saw in her mind was correct. Had she messed up the order of the letters in the acronym? Strategic Homeland… No, focus. Another Widow. At SHIELD. There was. Was. Was?

"What do you mean there was? Did Fury kick her out too?"

"No one was kicked out, Nat. She had some brain damage, among other issues."

"Other issues? You mean like me. Who was this girl? How old was she?" Could she have been from her class? A class she knew in the program? Who else had escaped and where was she now?

"I don't know much. She was from your class, survived a gunshot to the head, and was, officially, dead. At least according to the Red Room. But she made it out and I think…"

"My class?" She interrupted. "Someone from my class survived a gunshot to the head… Survived… Gunshot to the head…"

"Bruce said it would have had to have been in a room with very little airflow. Fast speed bullet. Narrow bullet. Someone who was a good actor…"

"You don't think?"

"That's exactly what I think."

"There's no way. She didn't survive. I saw.. I saw her. She wasn't breathing, her body was slumped on the floor and they had the doctor check her out. They never made mistakes."

"I think they made one. The Widow that SHIELD had… She left you a note, and she was your age. Would anyone else from your class have left you a note?"

"I want to go in."

"What do you- No. I don't think I'm even supposed to tell you any of this, you cannot go in."

"JARVIS, get me to SHIELD immediately."

"Natasha," he whined behind her.

"I'm going in. You can come or not."

"Why is there so much yelling?" Clint says, walking down the stairs in his shorts. Natasha turns away at the sight, blushing slightly.

"We're going to SHIELD, regarding the other Widow. Are you coming?" Tony replies shortly.

"Tony! She cannot handle this right now, why the hell would you tell her?"

"I think I know what I can handle."

"Clearly, you don't," he says, gesturing to her bandages, which she then hides, suddenly insecure.

"Clint, we're going. Are you coming or not?" Tony rolls his eyes at their exchange as he asks.

"At least she asking to go to SHIELD and face it rather than cutting herself to shreds," he says quietly. "I'll be down in a minute."

"Clint!" Tony scolds him as he walks upstairs to put on a shirt. Tony mutters under his breath as they wait. "Why the hell would he even mention that?"

"I want to cut before we go."

"No, Red."

"You said all I have to do is talk to you guys and let you watch or whatever. I've been talking all afternoon and I want to cut."

"Well, you're nothing if not predictable. Go ahead, Tony, just let her do it since that's what you all think is best."

"Never mind," she mutters under her breath.

"No, by all means, go ahead," he says, lifting his arms up to show his apathy to the situation. She wants to react. She wants to punch him in the face, truthfully. Who was he to judge the way she chose to cope in this situation, one he had never even come close to experiencing? But instead, she decided on an alternate route to get her revenger. If he didn't think she was getting better and didn't want to support the progress she had made, she would just stop. Stop cutting, stop eating, stop avoiding exercise, stop sleeping, stop drinking water. She would be dead in days and then he could be happy again, not worrying about her.

"Let's go," she said calmly. "I don't need it."


	41. Chapter 41

**AN: Okay, to the reviewer who said "stop the Bucky bashing," I have several things to say! First of all: this is my story and I will continue to choose how the characters act and develop. Secondly, please stick around and keep reading because, as I have been alluding for several chapters, Bucky's story does not end with the actions he did while brainwashed and under the control of the Red Room. Thirdly, I am NOT bashing Bucky's character. As you should know from reading the chapters thus far, his character was being controlled by the Red Room - which Natasha EXPLICITLY states and Steve corroborates that this is not typical of his friend. I would encourage you to go re-read the past 5-10 chapters if you happened to have missed that part because you really are missing some important points of the plot! Also, read this chapter closely because the beginning of his redemption arc was about to start :)**

**T/W: Talk of suicide, plus all normal T/Ws**

When they arrived at SHIELD that afternoon, Natasha would not even make eye contact with Clint from across the room and carefully chose seats that were the furthest from his, while Tony sat protectively next to her and glared daggers at the archer.

"Now, what in the hell could be so important, Stark?" Fury said, slamming the door open as he entered the room. "I swear if this is another of your…" His sentence trailed off as he saw Natasha sitting next to him and Clint across the table.

"I want you to tell me about the other Widow that you had at SHIELD. I want a name, all of the photos you have, the note she left me, where she went and is now, and anything else you know. I also want to know how you got her here and what you're planning to do with me."

"Really, Stark? Couldn't even last a day?"

"She deserves to know the truth."

"She can't handle the truth."

"I am sick," she fumed. "Of all of you men making my decisions for me. I get to decide what I can handle and if you do not tell me what I want to know, I will have all of SHIELD's files released on the dark web in a matter of minutes. This whole organization will go down with me if you keep refusing to give me what I want, so you had better choose your next words carefully."

Clint let out a small laugh, smirking and playing with a pocket knife by flicking it open and shut repeatedly. "Now there's the Natasha we all know and love."

"Alright," Fury concedes. "You are a dangerous woman, Miss Romanoff."

"So I've been told."

"A few years before we sent Barton to kill you in Budapest, we received intelligence from an agent in Russia that there was movement outside of a compound we had been tracking for years. At the time, we had suspected it was a sleeper cell of Hydra, so we sent a team to investigate and brought back a wounded woman, about your age who identified herself after 3 days as 'Sasha.'" Natasha could feel her chest caving into itself as he displayed a picture on the wall in front of them. A beautiful girl with long, brown hair falling in waves around her shoulders and down to her elbows; she had bruises covering her face and a bandage wrapped around the top of her head, but from her small green eyes to the unmistakable birthmark on the left side of her neck, there was no mistaking this girl. It was the one Natasha had killed years earlier. Or maybe she hadn't because the girl in this photo, although sad, was clearly alive from the hand at the edge of the frame, blurred by motion. She steadied herself by pushing the palms of her hands into the arms of the chair and biting her lower lip while taking a deep breath.

"Is that her?" Tony asked next to her and she simply nodded her head, not trusting her voice to speak without shaking.

"At first, she was very forthcoming with information so that we would offer her protection, but she had sustained some brain damage and, beyond that, our psychologists and therapists were astounded at the amount and severity of trauma she had faced. She had experienced every form of torture imaginable, been assaulted in every way, and had undergone years of malnourishment, bodily injuries, and manipulation." Both Clint and Tony exchanged a knowing glance, recalling where the Widow had ended up and Natasha's experiences. Another photo flashed on the screen, showing the same girl with no head wrap or bruises, speaking to a woman in a small room. Sasha was perched on the edge of a seat across from a SHIELD therapist and appeared to be holding something in her hands which were, again, blurred by apparent movement. "We did everything we could to help her recover. Physically, she had healed from most of her injuries and only had minor impairments in motor function and speech. But the damage she sustained in the Red Room was.. irreparable. After a few months in our care, she hung herself with bedsheets and all that remained were the belongings she had accumulated in the months she spent here and two notes. One was addressed to SHIELD, the other to you."

"What did the SHIELD note say?" She tried to ignore the hot stinging of tears in her throat, and the words came out thicker than intended.

He skipped over a photo of the suicide scene, opting to not show Natasha her friend hanging from the ceiling fan with a broken neck.

"It was a short letter, translated from Russian as her English had been somewhat lost in the brain damage and she had found it more difficult to use. She gave us details about how to track when Widows were entering and exiting the Program Headquarters, as well as the nature of your missions, how to obtain a Widow, and your name and description. She wanted us to save you, no matter what, and apologized that she wouldn't be here to see you herself. After doing some research, Agent Barton was sent to kill you because three previous attempts to obtain you following her guidance proved to fail and we simply could not afford to lose the kind of intelligence you were gaining for the Red Room."

"Where is the note she left for me?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tony asked gently from beside her.

"It's from her and she left it for me. I need to know what happened and I need to know whatever she wanted to tell me, but couldn't stay alive long enough for."

"I'll go with you," he replies shortly and she just nods her head in response, sharply grabbing the letter from Nick's hand and walking out of the room.

When they arrived in the room next door where she had fallen asleep before, she sat on the couch and began to tear at the corners of the sealed envelope. She had made a makeshift seal that would be difficult to redo with a marker, rubber band, and glue, so Natasha was relatively certain it had not been opened. A small piece of paper fell to the floor as she opened her letter.

To my sister Natasha,

I am so sorry that I will not be here to tell you these things in person. Please understand that I held on as long as I could, but I could not live with the possibility of being found and sent back to that awful place once I understood how the outside world truly is. It is beautiful and you will love it. I can imagine you now, listening to the beautiful songs I have heard and forming a friendship like the ones I have made here. No one here truly understands, but it does feel less lonely sometimes and I hope you will find the ability to trust people here, knowing that they will not hurt you for such a transgression as being kind to one another.

I hope you find love and happiness, as I have known in my short time here. The night that they forced you to shoot me is one I think of frequently, and I think of what an amazing friend you were to have tried to find a solution for us both to live or die together. Truthfully, I turned myself in so that you might live and, if you are reading this, I suppose it worked even though they failed to kill me. I had help, though. In the Red Room, I met a man. At first, he was sent to me, or rather, I was sent to him as a reward. They had given him some sort of drug, I could tell by the markings on his good arm and he forced himself onto me rather violently. But in the morning when we woke, he had barricaded the door and taken down the camera and microphones. He wanted to escape desperately and wanted no part of what he had done. Natasha, he apologized more times than I can count and I could see the hatred of himself on his face as I told him what he had done to me and probably others. I hope you did not meet him in this way, but my stomach tells me you did. His real name was Bucky, or at least that's what he wanted me to call him as a friend. He was the one who took me outside that night and placed me where he knew someone would notice me moving. I'm still not sure how he avoided his dose that night or why he chose to save me instead of running away. Maybe I'll never know.

He is a good man, I can tell. I hope you can save him if they save you. Lastly, my dearest sister, I want to tell you what I have struggled to learn myself. We were good people and it was the Red Room that made us do bad things: you, me, and Bucky. It is not our fault, it is theirs. There may be some things you can never forgive yourself for, I know I have plenty of red in my ledger. But you can heal here and you will be safe. Find people who make you feel safe and hold them tightly. Help save Bucky, if you can. He deserves better than what they gave us. Forgive yourself. And know that even if you can't, I forgive you for everything you did because you deserve to live a beautiful and happy life. You won't heal overnight. But you will find your way out of the darkness if you look for people that feel like sunlight.

Please find my sister and tell her I loved her with every ounce of my being. The extra letter in this envelope is hers.

My heart has always loved you.

Sasha


	42. Chapter 42

**A/N: Keep reviewing! I love hearing your thoughts and as I said, it motivates me to write even when my life is hectic!**

The note did not dramatically fall out of her hands, as though she was in some sad movie about her life. Her hands did tremble, though. They shook so hard that Tony thought she might have actually been concentrating solely on shaking her hands, even if subconsciously. As slowly as they began, the trembles subsided and she took a shaky breath to steady herself. The smaller envelope was in Tony's outstretched hand in front of her.

"I need to find her," she says softly, not moving her eyes from the letter in front of her after taking the smaller paper from him. "Where is Steve?"

"Why do you need Steve?" He asks, clearly confused by her sudden interest in his whereabouts.

"I need to talk to him about Bucky. She said some things... We need to save him. He's good." Her words felt heavy and strange as flashes of his actions still danced across her vision when mentioning his name. She was surprised at how easily she had come to trust the brunette, but it made sense as he had been on her side and nothing but helpful since he learned.

"He's with him, they had made some kind of discovery earlier."

"Will you take me there?"

"Of course," his heart surged a bit at her request. He had never known Natasha to ask for help willingly, so maybe they were making an impact on her. On the other hand, though, maybe she was just reeling from whatever the contents of the paper had told her. They walked slowly and he had to steady her every few steps, as even simple walking appeared to be exhausting to the point of dizziness.

"Can I get you something from the cafeteria?"

"Tony Stark? Offering to get something for someone else?"

"Fine, can I send one of these little agents to get you something from the cafeteria?"

"I'm fine," she sighed as she paused again to catch her breath. The exertion of the walk across the compound was taking a toll and she could feel it in her joints.

"Red, you need to eat something."

"No," she breaths heavily, beginning to walk again. "Actually, I don't."

"Come on," he pleads. "You were making such great progress, don't slow down now."

She almost tells him that no, actually, she wasn't making good progress. At least, not according to Clint; and if she wasn't getting better for him, what was the point anyway? But she wasn't ready to give up her slow, less noticeable attempt on her life just yet. Her body would not last more than three days without water, given her malnourished state, level of activity, and increased metabolism. Plus, if she couldn't hurt herself without permission, maybe this could serve the same punishment instead.

"Maybe later," she responds simply, picking up their pace. "I need to focus on this."

When they finally arrived in the holding area of SHIELD's facility, the place was a flurry of chaos all around. Several SHIELD agents were huddled around what she assumed to be Bucky's bed, Steve was in the corner not speaking or doing anything, and Bruce was flying around the room, taking notes and adjusting levels of some chemicals in a hypothetical 3D projection. Upon closer inspection, Bucky was lying motionless on the table.

"What happened?" She asked loudly, moving toward Steve, who held his knees in his arms similar to how she held herself during a panic attack.

"We were trying to detox him."

"Detox?" Stark asked from behind her. "He was on drugs? Oh. OH. Is that how they were-?"

"They were controlling him with some kind of drug. Botched Super Soldier serum mixed with a drug that makes the user more susceptible to suggestion," Bruce says from across the room. "We tried to detox him, but then he crashed. We stabilized him, but Steve watched it happen and we thought we lost him."

"We almost lost him, _again_," he rasps through a small, tearful cry.

"I understand how you feel."

"Nat, I know you're going through a lot right now, but I don't think you understand this."

"I just lost my best friend all over again," she sits across from him on the floor. "Her name was Sasha if you didn't hear Fury when he apparently told you all first. She was saved from the Red Room, but she killed herself when she got to SHIELD. They told me… They told me she was saved. And then she died. Again." The trembling returned to her hands once more as Steve looked at her through blurry eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Nat," he says, holding both of her hands in his. She flinches backward instinctively, but eventually lets him pull her into a small hug on his chest.

"It was him," she said quietly. "Your friend saved mine."

"What? But he…" He holds her head up slightly to meet her eyes, searching them for an explanation she has not provided.

"I guess it was before… Before they really had him under control. He would come in and out of the drug's effects and he helped her to escape. And she got me out with SHIELD. He's the reason I made it out. The reason that she had a chance at life. I'm not a scientist and I can't do much to help, but I want him to make it through this and get back to who he was, even if it will take a while for me to look at him."

"Thank you," he replies breathlessly after several minutes. "I think… I think I'm gonna need you to lean on as much as you need the rest of us, Nat."


	43. Chapter 43

**A/N: Yikes, the last chapter was my shortest ever (less than 1,000 words). It was a bit of a filler chapter, but now we'll get back to diving into Natasha's recovery, Bucky's healing, and that good, good team bonding :)**

After nearly 12 hours of work, with Nat and Steve refusing to leave his side, Bruce and Tony, with the help of a few medics and several shots of Five Hour Energy, managed to find a dosage that would begin to wean Bucky off of the injections without making him crash. He was decreasing by one milligram every 4 hours, which was how often they needed to administer the drug without causing his systems to crash and cause near-fatal responses, which meant that they would need three days to get to zero milligrams and begin questioning him about what he remembered from the drug-induced actions.

"You guys need to go home and get some rest. Nat needs to eat, too. Nothing interesting is going to happen," Bruce reprimands them.

"You need to rest as well, the SHIELD medics can alert you if there is some kind of issue," Steve retorts. Tony tried to wave them off while still staring into the light of his tablet, so they asked for his help to get Natasha to the car.

"This is a trap," he says wittily. "It's a good trap, but it's a trap."

"Tony, we need rest to keep researching tomorrow. Come on."

"It's the morning! I am not going to sleep."

"If you don't sleep, your card access to this area of the facility will be locked and all team members will be guarding it to keep you out," Maria Hill says, entering the room.

"I could take that down in minutes."

"But you won't. Go."

"Fine. But I'm going because I want to see Pepper, not because you told me to go."

"Sure, Tony."

When they got back to the tower, Natasha was unsurprised to find that Clint had been back the day before and was now heading out of the building. He gave her a brief glance in passing, but did not acknowledge her or even speak to the rest of the team. She was surprised, however, to see the rest of the team head their separate ways in the tower without so much as an argument about how she needed to eat or sleep or whatever else they decided was "a necessity." She assumed it had been about 20 hours since she decided to stop harming herself directly and just slowly die of thirst instead. The need for water had begun to subside as she continued to lack intake, but she could no longer resist the urge to fall into her pillow of a bed and let sleep take over. As soon as she crawled under the covers, still shivering in their warmth, her eyes drooped shut and a dreamless sleep overtook her body, her mind apparently too exhausted to even conjure her memories to torture her.

She woke nearly 12 hours later and smiled as she realized she had now hit 32 hours; only 40 to go. If she could just sleep this much twice more, it would go by even more quickly, but all of the sleeping pills had been removed from her room, as well as all pills except a single ibuprofen tablet in a ziplock bag, in case she was in pain.

"Nat?" Steve's voice rang out after a few short taps on her door.

"Yeah?" She responds groggily, pushing herself up gently to a sitting position.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure." He walks in and sits in the desk chair, pulling it to the side of the bed and glancing between her and his hands between his knees. "How are you doing, Cap?"

"Only about 60 more hours until we should know a lot more," he sighs. "I hope he's doing okay."

She hadn't considered the fact that she would not live to see Bucky's return, but she didn't mind as long as Steve got his best friend back and she didn't have to face him and hear if he remembered what he had done to her.

"I'm sorry it won't be sooner," she tells him.

"It's alright. I just…" he runs his fingers through his hair. "I want a distraction. So time will go faster, you know?"

"Um," she says cautiously. "Alright." She had heard this kind of comment before, form people trying to approach her from a "nice guy" angle. Just a nice guy who needs a little distraction. She takes a deep breath to steady herself before reaching to pull her shirt off over her head.

Steve interrupts before it makes it above her stomach, turning his head so as not to see her indecently. "Woah! What are you doing?"

"I was giving you a distraction?" She questions, slowly sliding the fabric back into its place on her skin.

"Nat, I meant like a movie or a walk. Not sex."

"Oh," she says lightly. Her thoughts feel a bit fuzzy in her mind, but she ignores it and briefly thinks about how incredible it is that none of her teammates have pressured her into eating yet.

"Would you like to watch a movie? Or play a game?"

"Maybe we could play a game?"

"Sure, I'll see if the rest of the team would like to play while you get into some new clothes?" He says, glancing at her days-old outfit, clearly wrinkled from sleep.

"Alright," she replies softly and changes into a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt from SHIELD. The drawstring of the pants is pulled as tight as it can go and she still needs to roll the waistband to bunch up the fabric and make it so that they do not fall off her hips; the shirt nearly swallows her whole, but it covers all of her scars and hides how ill-fitting the pants are on her. When she walks into the living room, everyone is set up around the kitchen table with Cards Against Humanity in the middle and plates full of sandwiches, chips, and carrots, which makes her groan internally.

"Would you like a nausea pill before we start?" Bruce asks from his seat next to her. Clint is placed as far away from her as possible without being at the other end where she would have to look at him directly, his head partially obscured by Tony's in the seat next to her.

"No," she replies simply and takes her seat without argument. They explain the game briefly and she catches on quickly, but does not touch her food or the fruit smoothie they've put in front of her.

"Nat," Bruce whispers after about 45 minutes when everyone else at the table has completely finished their meal. "You need to at least try to eat some of it."

Clint loudly scoffs from down the table.

"What's your problem, Barton?"

"I don't have a problem, Natasha. I've just given up on coddling your little issues."

"Coddling?" She says angrily. "You've given up caring at all and now you just make jokes and rude comments instead."

"Why should I care when you're not even trying?"

"Are you kidding me?" She nearly yells at him.

"I'm gonna have to side with Nat, here," Tony pipes in.

"Of course you do." He smirks, knowingly.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I think you know what that means, Stark. Does Pepper?"

"What is going on?" She asks from beside her husband.

"Nothing is going on. Clint thinks I'm sleeping with Nat."

Pepper nearly spits out her wine. "What, because he's trying to help her and being compassionate you immediately think they're having sex? Because he's giving her the support you can't or won't?"

"I tried to help her!"

"By doing what? You have constantly shamed her and, aside from hugs and crying with her and hating yourself, you have done nothing to _actually_ support her!" Steve adds.

"I…" he mumbles, feeling cornered. "It's too much."

"And what does that mean?" She asks carefully.

"You are fucked up. You're fucked up and a whore and I can't help you."

"Shut. Up."

"No, you need a reality check. You have done absolutely nothing to fix these issues and you just keep doing stupid shit. I'm sick of it and I'm sick of everyone coddling your panic attacks and stupid habits. You are a whore and you're fucked up. And until you realize that, nothing will change."

She doesn't hesitate and suddenly the glass plate full of food is flying across the room at him, her seat now vacant and a small set of footsteps running upstairs with labored breaths following.


	44. Chapter 44

**A/N: If you struggle with anorexia, this may be a tough chapter to read. Natasha is going to hear from that inner voice and it will not be pleasant, so proceed with caution. **

About halfway up the first flight of the stairs, she pauses to steady herself against the railing and notices the hot tears streaking down her cheeks. There's a small voice in her head telling her that if she runs up and down the stairs a few times, she could reduce the time it will take to die by about an hour from the sheer output in her state, but the black spots dancing in front of her eyes caution her against this action.

"Goddammit!" She screams and hits the wall next to her. "Why am I not good enough?"

"You're too fat. He was scoffing and say you weren't trying because he means that you're not trying to be a good team member." She quickly looks all around her stairwell, but she is still alone. "I'm in your head, stupid fat ass. God, you never learn, do you?"

"I really am going crazy…"

"Going?" She voiced laughed, echoing loudly in both of her ears and filling the stairwell with the noise. "Face it, Natalia. You've gotten lazy, fat, and stupid. What did you think would happen when you've gone this long without even punishing yourself?"

"I haven't eaten in days!"

"Not good enough," the voice scolded her. "You need to run up these stairs at least five times or else you're going to be as big as an elephant." In her mind, she saw the terrifying image of her skin expanding and stretching, her face swelling to create three chins where her neck had been, calves that could swallow the entire team in size. When the new image of her body moved, every inch of her skin sagged and jiggled with each step. Her new feet were bloated and she could barely move more than a few inches in any single step. The image was terrifying and gave her a rush of adrenaline to run up the 10 flights of stairs in the tower without passing out. When she reached the top, the dark spots threatened her vision once more, but she did not stop for fear that she would see the terrifying image again. Going down the stairs was much easier, but she had to focus on not getting so dizzy that she fell.

As she ran, the team was continuing to chastise Clint's actions in the dining room.

"She's doing her best!" Steve exclaimed in her defense.

"No, she isn't," he sounded absolutely exhausted.

"Why don't you tell us what the fuck you're thinking before I punch you in the face, Katniss."

"I didn't and haven't done the best job in explaining or trying to show it, but she's capable of so much more than this." He sighed again. "I didn't know she was cutting when you did, Stark, but I know she was doing a hell of a lot better than this before I did what I did. But she doesn't think she's doing anything bad and until she realizes that and makes the decision to get better for herself, instead of us forcing it on her, she's not going to get any better. So what's the point in pretending she's getting better or acting like it's so impressive that she's doing marginally better than cutting herself to shreds, never eating, and working herself to exhaustion? I'm tired of acting like it's an accomplishment to deal with her issues the way the rest of us do for a few days."

"You also did stupid shit to deal with not even a fraction of what she's been through, dumb ass."

Clint had no response. He had been so angry for the past few weeks because he couldn't understand why he couldn't just be with her and why he wasn't enough for her to want to get better.

"But she was enough for me to want to stop. Why am I not enough for her?"

"All you had to deal with was what you did to her," Banner piped in. "Natasha is dealing with a lifetime of trauma that none of us can make better. Natasha made what you did better - she was your victim and she forgave you. She doesn't get that luxury. She doesn't get to face the people she hurt and try to make things better because they're dead. And she is never going to get apologies, or even closure, from most of the people who hurt her."

"But it wasn't her fault, even the things she did to others were under duress."

"But that's not how she feels," Tony says. "She feels like it's all her fault and there's nothing she can do to fix it, so she just needs to punish herself to make things right within herself."

"Oh," he replies plainly.

"Yeah. Oh." Tony says snarkily. "Has anyone gone to check on her?"

"No, I was going to give her some time to process it. I figured JARVIS would tell us anything crucial." Steve stated calmly but shot worried glances toward where she had hurled her plate just a bit earlier.

"JARVIS? Natasha's status, please."

"Miss Romanoff is running up the stairs and has been doing so for 17 minutes and 26 seconds. Her heart rate is within the normal range, but higher than typical given her slow heart rate as of late."

"She's exercising," Clint says in a hushed tone. "She used to do this on missions when we couldn't find some kind of gym for her to use."

"JARVIS? What is her caloric intake/output like?"

"It appears that Miss Romanoff has not eaten in… approximately 33 and a half hours. Of greater concern, she has not had anything to drink and appears to be extremely dehydrated. She has expended 4,025 calories at this time. I would estimate that she is, at most, 12 hours from fatal dehydration and malnutrition given her metabolism and state."

"Shit," the entire team seems to share Clint's sentiment as he rushes toward the stairwell to catch Natasha when she passes out after pausing for a few seconds when she sees them.


	45. Chapter 45

The faint isn't romantic like the scenes in the movies, which seems to be a common theme in Natasha's life. Even though it seems like a great storyline for a movie, it wouldn't film well and she doesn't die prettily. When she passes out this time, though, it feels like she is finally dying. Instead of the sudden blackness of a typical pass out, her eyes flutter shut and her knees give out beneath her. The images in her mind pass quickly at first - flashes of all the things that happened to her in the Red Room. She sees all of the girls she's killed and thinks she's on a path to hell where she will have to relive them time and time again until the universe eventually collapses in on itself, but then the images shift and she sees memories she had consciously forgotten. She and Sasha are stealing a kiss in a hallway; the two of them sneaking off to the trash room with no camera on sub level 4 during a performance when they were meant to be backstage; her back arching under Sasha's body, giving the sweet release of pleasure they had learned about days before; practicing on each other in class, never allowing the other to fully finish to avoid suspicion of giving pleasure before an allowed exam. She relives the slow-motion memory of shooting Sasha in the head and screams as loud as she can. Her body falls, but Natasha notices a small twitch in her left hand, nearly undetectable. She sees how Sasha escapes with Bucky's help, her rescue by SHIELD, and the happiness that Sasha finds at SHIELD. Her friend has a beautiful smile that comes out every day in the SHIELD compound, not just when she's having pleasurable sex. The smile lights up Sasha's eyes and fills the room with a kind of happiness that couldn't be created otherwise. Sasha befriends a woman named Erin in the memories and falls into a deep, crippling sadness when Erin does not return from a mission. She watches again as her friend faces death, initially struggling against the lack of oxygen before falling still for the final time.

The film reel in her mind shifts and shows Natasha a quick flip through her adjustment period at SHIELD, before flipping through what she thinks is every happy memory she had after leaving. Her and Clint laughing over an overly aggressive game of Skee Ball after a mission. Moving into the tower and watching Tony fail at trying to make the team a nice dinner, then caving and buying a nice dinner out for everyone. Pepper helping her do her hair for the Stark Expo and the two of them singing to ridiculous music as they put on dresses and heels, then Steve joining them for a few oldies tunes. Happy telling her jokes while she and Clint prepare for a mission in the back seat. Clint climbing through the vents and shooting the team with foam arrows during movie night. The rush of endorphins after completing a ballet routine for joy instead of punishment. Discovering the joys of Target and hearing Thor's take on earthly inventions, especially after he discovers Pop-Tarts. Reading novels with Bruce in the windowed porch as the rain comes down slowly outside. Getting Schwarma with the team, all together and happy after New York. There are dozens, far more than she had thought. Her entire body feels like it is filled with warmth for a fleeting moment and it feels like liquid gold is filling her veins, shinning from the inside out. She feels lighter than ever and as if she walking through Heaven, even though she had never really believed in it. She light radiates from her while she walks toward a bright light in front of her and a small piece of her brain tells her that it's not time and she can't walk toward a light. Her life will not end with her walking toward a bright light like some sappy movie, even though she has just seen the best film reel.

Her attention is drawn away from the light and toward a sound to her left. They aren't her memories, but she is in each of them regardless. She sees herself sitting on a pew as Tony watches Pepper walk down the aisle in a small, intimate wedding she never knew he wanted. She's holding their baby in the hospital room when Pepper tells her that she wants Natasha to be the godmother. A small blonde girl runs toward her "Auntie Nat" and she takes the child into her arms and spins it around. She's sitting on a rooftop eating a picnic and laughing with Clint under a string of lights with New York City in the background. A teenage kid she doesn't recognize is training in the training room with Tony and they call her down to spar with him, which she bounds down to do. The team fights a mission and walks toward a new eccentric food shop, the teenager with them and Natasha's belly swollen slightly. A woman she doesn't recognize sobs next to her on the ground and something in Natasha tells her that she is the only one who can help this scared young woman who is mourning her brother and her part in his death. She's walking down the aisle to Clint, following a bouncing toddler boy who has her eyes and Clint's hair; the archer is smiling like a goofball and the whole team is watching her in the front row. The boy is older now, wearing a shirt that says "big brother" and holding an impossibly tiny girl in his small arms with Clint in the background holding a camcorder and Natasha smiling at them all from her place on a medical table. She sees the two children grow older, having small fights over toys and school and whether they get to be superheroes like mom and dad. She sees Sasha watching from somewhere above it all, smiling with tears in her eyes and in the arms of Erin, who she recognized from the earlier memories. Then everything goes black again and it feels like seconds, but she still can't open her eyes. At first, she is still convinced she died, but she hears the telltale beeping of machines around her and the hushed voices of her team members.

"-been days!"

"She did a lot of damage."

"How will I ever make this right with her?" Clint's voice sounds wrong - is it raw and rougher than usual or is this dreamlike state distorting all of them?

"I think she'll forgive you," Steve's voice sounded normal, so it was just Clint.

"I don't deserve it again."

"If she can forgive him," Tony scoffs, clearly holding a grudge over whoever he was referring to. "She can forgive you too. I did and I hold much worse grudges than her."

What had happened? She couldn't remember why she was supposed to be mad at Clint. She remembered that she had been starving herself so she would die already, but she didn't remember much from those days other than sleeping and not feeling like she was in control of her body.

"Mmmm," she grunted, unable to lift her eyelids or open her mouth fully. She didn't even know if they could hear her, but she had to try.

"Natasha?" Clint tried weakly, then gained confidence and tried again. "Nat? Are you awake?"

"She may still be too weak to respond," Bruce interjected. "Nat, can you tap any of your fingers?"

She lightly lifted the pointer finger of her left hand and set it back down with little effort.

"Okay, good," he responded. "Can you talk? If you can't, tap your finger twice for 'no.'"

She tapped her finger twice on the cool sheets underneath her.

"Can you open your eyes? One for yes, two for no."

She tried to lift her eyelids and briefly opened them a tiny amount, but it was an exertion and the bright light of the room was too much. She tapped her finger twice and her mind started whirring. The bright white meant she was not in the tower, she must be at SHIELD or, worse, an actual hospital.

"Okay, do you know where you are or what happened?"

Two taps.

"Nat…" Tony says slowly. "You are in the SHIELD medical bay and you have been here for four days. You passed out due to malnutrition and dehydration."

Okay, SHIELD, she could probably handle that. She wasn't sure how yet, but she could figure something out.

"We had to bring you here because…" Bruce lifted his hand to stop Tony from saying more and he continued for Tony.

"Your condition has become too extensive for me to treat without a team. You are in a private room and only a medical team, Fury, Hill, and the team know you're here."

"I know you aren't fond of Fury," Tony picks up for Bruce to ease the nerves he knows are building. "He hasn't pulled you from the team and has conditionally allowed us to continue your treatment at the tower, but there is going to be a team helping us. A nutritionist, therapist, psychiatrist, and physical therapist."

"For now," Bruce interjects again. "We need you to rest and we can talk about this more when you wake up and are able to participate more than tapping."

"I-" she rasped quietly, using all of her energy to form the small word and expending all of the energy she had to finish her thought. "I love you all."


	46. Chapter 46

**A/N: 60k words, woohoo! We are beginning to see the start of Natasha's journey forward, but it will not be a smooth road as anyone in recovery from similar issues knows. Also, I will be starting to include other characters from the MCU, but not randomly/needlessly. I have kind of written Thor out just because I don't think he would be super helpful with her issues, but he may make an appearance every now and then. Currently, he is dealing with Loki since we are in the post-New York time, but I'm not *super* strictly following any timeline. **

It was nearly a week later when Natasha finally woke up and was able to sustain enough energy to keep her eyes open and speak for more than a few minutes. In the time she was asleep, they had used an NG tube to provide as many calories as her body would allow without a negative reaction and occasionally used the finger-tapping system to make sure she felt safe and at least understood any decisions they were making. The doctors quickly determined that she has damaged her heart moderately, but not irreparably and the beats were already stronger and faster than they had been in months.

The kid from what she had seen while she was asleep was among those in the room when she woke up and he was the first to notice her eyes flitting open.

"Miss Romanoff, oh my gosh, you're awake. I'm Peter. I am working with Mr. Stark for a while and I am…" He was quickly silenced by Tony next to him.

"Red, Peter has been checked and is safe to be here. We have a lot to tell you about what has happened."

"I kn-" she struggled to speak with the tube obstructing her airways partially. Readjusting to the tubes was never pleasant and it was additionally confusing as she noticed that her wrists were restrained to the bed's rails. "I know he's safe. I… Saw it. Why am I tied down?"

"Saw it?" Peter says, obviously confused.

"We can talk about that later," Bruce eyes her cautiously. "We need to talk about a few things."

"Can you let me loose?" The panic was beginning to edge its way into her voice as she wriggled her tiny wrists around to try to get them loose.

"We need to talk first and then we can consider having the restraints removed. Please stop struggling before you hurt yourself."

She took in a deep breath at Bruce's words, trying to steady herself and understand her surroundings fully. Peter, Bruce, Tony, and Clint were in the room, though Clint had yet to even acknowledge that she was awake. There was some kind of orderly SHIELD agent coming in and out, putting different things on the counter and waiting for a nod from Bruce, presumably approving the things she was dropping off.

"Where is Steve?"

"He's working on an assignment," Bruce says calmly.

"An assignment that didn't require the rest of the team?" She asks incredulously.

"Yes," Tony replies simply as Bruce busies himself sorting the items on the counter. "Now we need to talk about some serious things, Red."

"Clint?" She says quietly, the nerves edging into her voice once more.

"I'm here," he moves toward her and she feels grateful for his light touch on her arm at her side as Tony continues.

"When you were brought in this time, you were severely underweight, malnourished, dehydrated, and on the brink of death." He gave her a stern look when she tried to interject about how dramatic he seemed. "Your heart rate had become dangerously slow and you were hours away from dying on us. There was some damage to your heart, which will heal, but you cannot afford any more damage, which is why we had to bring you here. You won't like this, but we have been able to supplement you in the past two weeks that you have been here so that your body is no longer dehydrated or as severely malnourished, but they will not release you until you are eating at least 2,000 calories on your own and supplementing more through drinks or IV bag fluids."

"I haven't eaten that much in-"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Bruce said from beside her. "You won't be doing anything but laying in this exact room until you can eat that amount to account for your basal metabolic rate and the enhancements of your metabolism."

"Okay," she sighed.

"They also know about the cuts," Tony said quietly. "You'll be meeting with a therapist daily while you are here and then twice a week when you move back into the Tower. You are also going to have a psychiatrist evaluate you and you will meet with a nutritionist daily here, then weekly at home."

"Anything else?" She scoffed, tears coming to her eyes as she thought about just how impossible it would be to keep up with all of these restrictions.

"You are off the team, Nat," Clint said from beside her. "It's temporary, but you can't go on any missions until you are released from the hospital." Her eyes searched both Clint's and the rest of the men in the room, who remained fixed in their positions. The tears started to fall as she blinked and laid her head down in defeat.

"I know this isn't easy, Natasha," Bruce replies.

"Isn't easy? You want me to do all of these things AND take away the one thing that made me even want to try?" She could feel her face getting hot and turned her head to stare at the wall on the other side of the bed, avoiding all of their eyes.

"We will be with you every step of the way," Tony says reassuringly.

"If I can't help the team, then why would I care about getting better? If my career is dead, why shouldn't I just go back to the Red Room? At least I was useful there!"

"Nat," Clint soothes from beside her.

"You will be helping the team by getting better."

"That's crap and you know it, Stark."

"What if it would help us, though?" Clint asks her cautiously. "What if there is something you could do in your therapy here that would be directly beneficial to helping us take down the Red Room?"

"How can I do that by laying in this bed, Barton?" He exchanged a glance with Tony, who glared back at him.

"You can't put that pressure on her. She needs time to heal first and get her strength back before we even think about that," Bruce responds.

"Before what? Come on, I should at least get to know the one thing I could possibly do other than lay here and be pathetic!"

"How much do you remember from before we brought you here, Nat?"

"I remember I was starving myself so I would just hurry up and die without you guys interfering."

"Okay," Clint says from beside her, wincing at her words. "Other than that?"

"Um… We had gotten Bucky here? And Sasha…" she whispers her name, remembering the flashes of her best friend living her life here and the moments they had stolen in the Red Room.

"Okay, good," Clint says quietly.

"What if we brought Bucky into a few of your sessions and you two worked together to help us get some information form your memories?"

"You mean you would let him…" she stammered quickly. "You want me to…"

"No, Nat. We would never ask you to do that," Tony replied, glaring at Clint again. He was harnessing a lot of anger toward the archer and was not trying to make it subtle. In his eyes, if Clint hadn't been such a dick, Natasha may have been still recovering quietly in the Tower under their watchful eyes.

"No, Nat," Clint confirmed. "We would all be here for those sessions to protect you and you would work with a SHIELD therapist. But you would work together to find out anything you guys can remember that could help us take them down. We could even work with Viktori-"

"Stop, Clint," Bruce says cautiously. "She still needs to rest and this is a lot to throw at her."

"I want to do it," she says firmly. "If you will all be there to make sure nothing happens, I want to do it. It's all I can do, right?"

"We haven't decided if you can-"

"Tony, please! I need something to do, some reason to even try all of this. What's the point of getting better f I can't even help anyone?"

He sighs at the end of her bed and glances at Peter. When he had confronted the boy and offered him the "internship," and then when his aunt died a few days later, he knew that this would be good for Natasha too, to have someone around to mentor and someone who looked up to her. But she wasn't ready to be fully introduced to him, yet. He was broken, too and Tony needed to help them separately before merging the two to help each other heal.

"Alright," he gives in. "For now, let Bruce play doctor and we can start with the specifics tomorrow."


	47. Chapter 47

**A/N: I am not abandoning this story! I was in a six-week treatment program that took me almost 8 weeks to complete and I could not really write during that time. Now I am back in school, but I will be writing again hopefully!**

After a full night of being poked, prodded, and having her vitals taken hourly, Natasha was sick of every doctor who even passed by her doorway. They all gave mixed looks of pity and frustration with much more emphasis on the former than the latter. The hours passed slowly and she was unable to get to sleep either due to her racing thoughts or the fact that she had been sleeping in a sense for days. Her brain was critically analyzing the scenarios she was facing now, including what would happening in the impending sessions with Bucky. Even bringing his face to mind would send her into a state of panic from memories that remained.

Her body was tired, of that much, she was absolutely sure. Even as her mind continued whirring, her body was physically exhausted and sore all over. Legs and arms burned just from twisting in the itchy hospital sheets and even the smaller muscles shook with effort at minuscule exertions like lifting her hand. There were large bruises varied in age and color covering any area where an IV had been inserted, blood had been drawn, and the blood pressure cuff had been placed. She sighed when examining them, gingerly fingering each yellow, blotchy one and thinking about what all of this meant - what recovery would mean. Then, a panic took her throat and consumed her chest, suddenly and intensely. The machines around her noticed this, too, as she realized the thoughts that had led to this reaction. She hadn't cut in days and the old cuts were undoubtedly already healing quickly, meaning she had nothing new to show for how she was upholding her training. In an all-too-familiar way, her eyes darted all over the room, considering her options. The IV keeping her body nourished was covered in wads of tape and gauze, layered so tightly that it would take too much energy to unbind them. Everything sharp was removed from the room and only brought in when necessary, but her arms had been freed and her nails had grown fairly long over the past several weeks. She began to frantically scratch at one spot on her opposite arm, eventually breaking the skin and feeling a sweet release of the skin curling under her fingernails and the hot touch of her fingers on the exposed flesh. A small contented smile spread across her face and granted her a sigh of relief.

"Natasha," Bruce says, yawning as he enters the room. She quickly tries to lay her head down and pretend to be asleep, but knows that her vital signs will give her away. "I know you're awake. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, go back to bed," she sounds small.

"It's almost 5, I was about to get up and check on you anyway. You can talk to me, what happened?"

"5 AM?"

"Yes."

"When can I start therapy so I can help the team?"

"You have a psychological evaluation at 8 AM and your individual therapist will see you after that. From there, we'll decide on a schedule of when you can jump into the team's work."

"3 more hours? But I am ready to start now! I feel great."

"Have you slept at all?"

"I.." She hesitates and he catches it.

"You need to be sleeping to give your body the best chance to heal. Would you like me to push a drug through your IV that will help get you relaxed?"

"Um… I guess some sleep would be nice."

"Okay," he says slowly. "I'll be right back."

When he returns, he has two vials in his hand and carefully draws a needle full of each before injecting them into a port of the IV.

"What's the other one?"

"Nothing, Nat. Just go to sleep."

"Mkay," she replies sleepily, amazed at how quickly it seems to have worked on her body.

When she is awoken again, it's 8:07 AM and the spot on her arm has a piece of gauze taped over it. A small woman she does not recognize sits next to her bed in Clint's chair.

"Good morning Natasha," she says softly. "Would you like to sit up and eat breakfast while we chat or wait until your therapist comes in?"

"I'll wait thanks," the woman does not miss the hint of snark that creeps into her voice.

"Alright," she says just as pleasantly as before. "My name is Dr. Andrea Segra, but you can call me Andrea. I'll be your psychiatrist from now on and will handle your medications, as well as provide any diagnoses and assessments for any and all mental health issues."

"Great," Natasha's eyes roll almost involuntarily.

"First I'll need to go over a few demographic questions to make sure my records are correct. Can you tell me your full name, date of birth, and where and with whom you currently live?"

She recites these facts on autopilot, not entirely sure why these couldn't just be taken from her file.

"Okay, great," Andrea says. "Why don't we start by you telling me a bit about why you think you're here?"

"As in the hospital, SHIELD, or on Earth?"

"I like your humor, Natasha. We'll start with why you are in the hospital, please."

"Bruc- I mean Dr. Banner says I was malnourished, dehydrated, and on the brink of death, but that seems a bit dramatic to me. It would have taken another day and a half or so to actually kill me."

"So this was intentional?" Andrea quickly scribbles notes on the yellow legal pad in her lap.

"Of course it was, didn't they already tell you how fucked up I am?"

"I am here to talk to you, Natasha. Not Dr. Banner or anyone else, although I will consult with him later to ensure your entire treatment team is on the same page."

"And who exactly is on my 'treatment team?'"

"Well, you, of course, myself, Dr. Banner, two other doctors who have been working on your case during your time here, a nutritionist, your therapist, and a trauma specialist."

"Jesus," she mutters under her breath.

"What was that? I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you."

"Nothing, what's next?"

"Well, first and foremost, how often do you think about death?"

"Every day?" She scoffs. "It's part of my job as a SHIELD agent, I always have to be looking to see where the next threat could be."

"Right, but how often do you think about killing yourself?"

"I'm supposed to say never, right? Otherwise, you'll lock me up?"

"Natasha, to be completely honest, I could 'lock you up,'" she says, emphasizing the air quotes, "for a long time just based on what I already know. I'm asking these questions so that we can help you get better and do it as effectively as possible."

"And what if I don't want to get better?"

"I don't think that's true," Andrea says thoughtfully. "I think, if that were really the case, you would be dead by now. You are Natasha Romanoff, you don't fail at anything. So, if you aren't meeting this supposed goal, there must be a reason you are still here."

Her statement makes Natasha really think about her actions. Would she have succeeded by now? Surely it was just a pure coincidence that she happened to survive this long because she wanted to die, didn't she? Didn't she?

"I think about killing myself every single day," she finally says, honestly.

"Thank you, it was very brave of you to admit that to me," Andrea notes this on the paper. "Do you ever harm yourself intentionally without the intention of death? For example, cutting or burning yourself, pulling out hair, scratching yourself, starving yourself, forcing yourself to throw up..?"

"Yes."

"To which actions?"

"I have cut, scratched, starved, and thrown up."

"How frequently?"

"Daily, except vomiting. I only do that when I get forced to eat," she eyes the breakfast on the tray next to her suspiciously, but neither of them acknowledges this.

"What does a typical day in your head feel like?"

She paused, thinking about the question and reflecting on what she could recall. Should she tell this woman about the voice that yells at her when she eat? Or the memories that make her feel like she has to punish herself or else she'll die? Probably not, she decides. She can't seem too crazy or they'll never let her back on missions.

"I don't know, pretty chaotic I guess."

"Do you ever have panic attacks."

Every day. "Sometimes."

"What about depression? Do you ever feel like it's too hard to do basic daily tasks, or like you want to be left alone?"

"Yes, but everyone feels that way, don't they?"

"Well, to an extent. Most people feel tired at the end of a particularly long or hard day, or perhaps after a vacation. But in those with depression, they often wake up tired before they have started their day and find it difficult to do even the most basic tasks, like drinking water or brushing their teeth."

"I guess I feel that way sometimes. It just seems like getting out of bed is kind of pointless if I don't have a mission that day because nobody really wants me around any-" she stops herself.

"Natasha, you do not need to be afraid. You can tell me anything you want and this is a safe space."

"Sure it is."

"What about flashbacks or memories?"

"Yes," the answer comes out automatically.

"Okay, I think that was all of the questions I have for you. I would like to start you on two medications - one for anxiety, which will help you to have fewer panic attacks and feel less like your thoughts are spiraling out of control. The other medication will help with the depression. Many patients find that the second medication makes them feel energized and productive. We will start you out on a lower dose of each of those, and increase as needed. We can always stop them if you feel like you're having side effects or don't like how they make you feel."

"I can stop them at any time?"

"Yes, but I would like you to try them for about two weeks at least, just to let them really kick in and get into your system."

"Okay," Natasha agrees hesitantly.

"You are taking some great first steps, Natasha." The woman smiles at her as she stands to leave the room. "You may not feel it now, but you should be extremely proud of what you are doing. Recovery is hard, but you will feel so much better in the end."

"Right now I feel like shit, but thanks for the useless encouragement, doc." She turns over, facing her back toward the door defiantly and regretting every honest word she has told the doctor. Now they're going to hop her up on crazy pills and she'll never get back on the team with that many drugs in her system just to function like a normal person.


	48. Chapter 48

**A/N: Thanks for checking in on me, I am actually doing much better and plan to continue this story, with as much honesty about the true nature of what healing looks like. Trigger warnings, as always. **

Once the psychiatrist left her room, she was alone with her thoughts again for a few minutes. They began to drift back to the many ways she could think of to kill herself, but most of them fell short of possible given the lack of access she was facing in the hospital room. Any continued thought processes were cut short by the sudden interruption of a small, short woman with long blonde hair who was carrying a large file in her hand and had glasses hung around her neck.

"Natasha, right?" The woman seemed a bit frazzled, as if she truly didn't know if she was in the right room. Natasha gave a small nod and the woman took a seat in the chair across from her. "Right, well then, let's get started. Why did you want to kill yourself?"

"Because I wanted to die."

"Why is that?" The woman asked half-heartedly, flipping through the stack of papers in front of her rather quickly and not even glancing up at Natasha.

"I don't know," her answer matched the assumed tone of the woman in front of her: apathetic and distracted at best.

"Mmhmm, and what trauma have you faced in your life?"

"Isn't this in my files?"

"Probably, but I am supposed to ask you."

"I am not traumatized. I'm an agent and a spy, I was trained to be as effective as possible and it seems that SHIELD and I have some… disagreements about what that looks like."

"Right, well, for this to work and for us to both not waste our time, you are going to have to talk about your trauma. We are also supposed to talk about…" She flipped through the pages again. "Alternatives to self-harm? Wow, that's a first for an Agent."

"Are you sure you're qualified for this?"

"Listen here, you entitled brat," the therapist slammed her file folder shut and raised her voice in anger. "Just because we aren't all out defeating alien invaders doesn't mean we aren't qualified for our jobs."

Instinctively, Natasha shrank away from the loud noises and apologized repeatedly in Russian, straining against the confines of the blanket laid over her that had twisted around her body and kept her somewhat immobile in the bed.

"Code Scarlet," the therapist repeated into a walkie talkie. "Code Scarlet."

"What happened?" Bruce asked as he rushed into the room, followed shortly by a sweating and panting Clint Barton.

"She was non-compliant and was beginning to get violent," the woman brushed down her outfit lightly with her free hand and gave Natasha, who was still panicking but now accompanied by Clint trying to calm her, a side glance.

"Don't let-" she muttered to the archer. "Mad. I'm sorry."

"Shhh, Natasha, it's alright. Take a deep breath with me, okay? Let's breathe in," he places her hand on his chest to get her to follow the rise of his chest. "And out. Good, Nat. Let's do 7 more, okay? Slowly now."

"Okay, I think you've done enough for today. We will see you tomorrow Mrs. Cantril."

"You had better get her in line before the next time I see her. I will not condone violence against me."

"Nat? Are you okay?" He asks, closing the door behind the blonde.

"I t-think so. She's gone?"

"Yes," he hesitates. "But tomorrow you cannot chase her off like that. You need her help and you are not going to get out of therapy by threatening people."

"I didn't-"

"Nat," Clint says in a warning tone. "We all know you don't want to see a therapist, but she can really help you to get past your past. I think you need that."

"But it wasn't me! I don't like her. I want to see someone else, she didn't try to help me and she was just distracted the whole time."

"She's a SHIELD therapist," Bruce defended carefully. "She wouldn't do that. I know you hate all of this, but please just try to work with us."

"But I'm not-"

"Nat."

"Fine, don't believe me," she huffs at Clint. "Did they ever decide if I get to help with Bucky?"

"You have to have at least a week of successful sessions with your therapist, psychiatrist, and a nutritionist. Then you can help," Bruce returns to his normal, even-tempered bedside manner. He goes about changing her IVs and hands her a small cup with a few pills in it.

"What is this?"

"Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Calcium, and Magnesium. They two discussed with your psychiatrist and two supplements to help with absorption."

"Can't you just give me these through the tubes or IVs?"

"We can, but taking them orally with supervision will get you closer to be released sooner. Eventually, we will move all of your daily meds to pills you will swallow. For now, we will just do these four and do mouth checks, where you will pull back both cheeks and pull up your tongue to show us that the pills are being swallowed correctly. You will not be allowed to use the restroom unsupervised for 2 hours following medications or food taken orally."

"This is ridiculous."

"This is necessary. We have to get you better."

"Whatever," she sighs quietly and holds out her hand for the pills and a small glass of water to use to swallow them. After taking the pills, she allows Bruce to shine a flashlight in her mouth and check the areas for hidden pills.

"Than you, Nat," Clint smiles at her. "Now, you've got some visitors for the afternoon. He opens the door and Peter, Tony, Thor, and Pepper all bound in, each carry a card game or snack, with Pepper bringing in a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

"They're gorgeous," she tears up as she speaks.

"I arranged them myself," Pepper smiles at her.

"What are we playing first?" Peter asks excitedly, though Natasha thinks she can sense some sadness hidden deep behind the younger boy's smile and vows to find out what's going on with him.


End file.
